Shelter from the Storm
by Guyute24
Summary: RedXRaeRobin A botched mission and an ancient Egyptian curse lands Raven and RedX in an alternate realm fighting for their lives. Continuation of The Song Remains the Same. Chapter eight up!
1. Echoes

**Disclaimer: Teen Titans is the sole property of someone else...this isn't going to change unless by some form of divine intervention I inherit the ability to alter reality. Thus, this disclaimer applies from this point on. **_  
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_A/N: Well, here it is folks, the continuation of my one-shot, "The Song Remains the Same." If you haven't read it, I would suggest doing so, or you're probably going to be a bit lost, here._

_Also, just a fair warning, I'm notoriously slow. I have a slew of health problems and family issues and job hunting bizzareness in my life that prevent me from writing as much as I'd like, so be advised, I'm no Kid Flash, here. I, am, however trying to work ahead a bit on this, so I don't leave you guys hanging for too long. I have the next couple of chapters lined up and a clear idea on where I'm going with this, so for the moment you can expect updates every two or three weeks._

_I accept all forms of criticism, though flames will be used to melt the icicles from my nose this winter...God knows no one can afford propane._ _And reviews make me a happy little hippie, so don't forget to feed the author on your way out. _

_All that said, thanks to evilsangel for taking a peek at this for me to make sure I've not slaughtered anyone's character or the like. Peace, all, and I hope you enjoy!_

_**Chapter One: Echoes**_

"_By chance two separate glances meet, and I am you, and what I see is me."_ --Pink Floyd, _Echoes_

He moved like mercury—fluid and precise, lethal in its subtlety. Every step spoke of power, every breath of measured control. His muscles tangled and flowed in long lines of moonlit liquefaction, emanating raw energy with every sweeping motion. Rolling over unto himself, twisting this way and that, he was an exhibition of finesse and preternatural agility, striking out into the night with such intensity that she could feel the wind brush her face from the force of his blows.

It was art, in its most primal form: The human body.

Had she the time, Raven would have appreciated the beauty of it all. However, as he was in all things, Robin was relentless and whole-hearted, and thus, his assault left room for nothing save the feel of the energy between them, the moment as it fell into place around them, and the natural urgency of her body's response to his. He advanced, and she countered. He struck, and she blocked. Over and again, he unleashed a flurry of seamless attacks; yet, while he was clearly her superior, she continued to rise against him, stone-faced and ever unyielding.

And so it was they danced beneath the moonlight, every movement a poem, vicious and sensual—symphonic in all its brutality.

Their battle became feverish as he pushed her faster, manipulating her defense to guide her into the wall of the rooftop entrance. She could feel the fatigue weigh down on her as heavily as the sweat on her skin, and a well-placed kick to her midsection slipped through her resistance. Raven froze as her back made contact with cool steel.

She was cornered.

But Raven was clever, more so than most, and when Robin closed the distance with his arms positioned for his finishing move, she put her sense to good use. She dropped to the ground and brought her left leg around in a wide arc, sweeping his legs right out from under him. Robin grunted as the impact knocked the air forcefully from his lungs. However, he was quick, and in the space of a breath he had rolled away and was on his feet again.

Yet the damage was already done. This time it was Robin on the defensive as Raven struck out at him with a newfound force, her small fists driving him to block at nearly unimaginable speeds. So caught up in her assault was he, that he barely stopped what would have been a stinging kick to his side if it had landed.

It was exactly what she'd hoped for, as it turns out. Just as he gripped her leg, she delivered a sound, open palm hit directly to his sternum that sent him skidding backward to the very edge of the roof.

Raven's eyes went wide as the ledge caught him across the back of his heels, throwing him further off balance; he teetered there for just a moment, arms moving in wide circles, before succumbing to the pull of gravity and slipping over the side. "Robin!" she cried as she ran to the edge, eyes glowing in preparation to catch him in the web of her magic before he met a grisly end on the rocks below.

But he wasn't there.

The sound of his boots as they touched down was her only warning. Raven turned back just in time to catch a strong, side sweeping kick to the ribs that sent her tumbling violently, face first across the ground. She came to a rest on her back, panting heavily and groaning at the raw pain in her side and across her face.

Of course, Robin was nowhere near finished with his assault, and Raven just barely managed to bring her feet up to block as he descended upon her. To her utter surprise, the last second maneuver worked; she caught him squarely in the stomach, using the angle of his attack to draw back and propel him into the air and over her head in a painful collision course with the ground. Before he could even register what she'd done, Raven had used the momentum of her defense to vault back into a crouch.

And then it was over.

In any other situation, it might have been considered provocative. But Raven didn't _do_ provocative, at least not consciously, and Robin wasn't about to further risk his health by pointing it out to her. So, he opted to sit motionless below her as she straddled him, knees dug into hands and chest pressed tightly to his while she brought her forearm up securely across his throat.

"Give?" she asked breathlessly.

He couldn't help but grin in response. While her expression was entirely void, he could still see the excitement dancing like star-shine behind her eyes, could feel the victorious smirk tug at the corner of her lips like it was his own. It was nearly a shame to disappoint her.

He chuckled a bit, though winded. "You're getting better," he complimented, and she relaxed her hold on his throat and sat up, offering a small, genuine smile as she did.

It was a bit premature, as it turns out.

The moment she lifted, he jerked up, unsettling the balance of her weight enough to tip her. His hand shot out to grab her wrist, and he shifted his knee between her thighs, rolling them across the ground until he could secure his advantage.

_Now_, it was over.

Raven squirmed and cursed as he pinned her to the ground, face down, with her hands held tightly in one hand and her neck in the other. His knees trapped her legs, and he distributed his weight evenly across her back, effectively immobilizing the dark sorceress.

"But you've still got a long way to go," he finished, smirking. "Give?"

"You cheated," she growled. Raven was seething. The arrogant bastard, she should have known he wouldn't give up so easily.

"And how many villains do you know that play fair, Raven?" he remarked, still not letting go of his hold on her. "Besides, I don't recall conceding the fight."

She glowered at that, and for just a moment she seriously debated on using her powers to whack him upside that giant, ego-inflated head. However, it was their only rule: No weapons. No powers. And she wasn't about to stoop to violating it—even if he did deserve it.

"You're an ass," she deadpanned.

Robin laughed out loud. "Oh come on, Raven," he replied amusedly. "Winning isn't everything."

"No, it's just the only thing that matters," she spoke dryly, quoting his words from so long ago. She wriggled a bit more but quickly discovered that any attempts to break his hold were futile. "Alright, Boy Blunder," she muttered with a defeated sigh, "I give. Now, get off me."

He was on his feet without another word, and Raven rolled to a sitting position, rubbing her wrists gingerly and scowling at him all the while. _Damn it!_ She was _so_ close that time. In the eight months he'd been training her, she had never once beaten him, and while she wasn't as glaringly obvious about it, Raven hated to lose almost as much as Robin. Many nights, it was for this reason and this reason only that she did not just give up altogether.

The truth of the matter was that Raven hadn't wanted to learn Kung fu, or any other martial art, in the first place. But after the incident at Wayne Enterprises, when Cinderblock had sent her sailing over the edge of that skyscraper, Robin had insisted that she take up a secondary form of defense. She had argued with him, of course, saying that even if she _had_ been more adept in hand-to-hand combat it would have made little difference against an opponent like Cinderblock.

Her logic had, unfortunately, fallen on deaf ears.

Had he been anyone else, she would have told him to kiss her ass and left it at that. But this was _Robin_, and Robin never second-guessed her judgment or her abilities.

Only his own.

And that's when she had realized just why this was so important to him. Raven wanted to kick herself for not recognizing it sooner. He'd become so accomplished at hiding his feelings from her that she hadn't been able to pinpoint the source of his discomfort until it was staring her in the face.

Guilt.

He hadn't been able to get to her, couldn't come for her when her situation was most dire, and it was eating him up inside. That she had been saved by Red-X, of all people, did nothing save intensify his, already unhealthy, sense of self-loathing. In his mind, Robin had failed her, no matter how hard he had tried. And she had no doubts that he'd tried. He would gladly lay down his life for any one of them and not think twice about it. Not because they were his team or even his friends—it was more than that.

They were a family. That's what families do.

Thus, she agreed, knowing that it was his way of saving her after the fact, knowing that it would do more for his conscience than words ever could. And if it was within her power to give him that one little piece of absolution, then Raven supposed it was worth it.

Because that's what families do.

…Even if it does mean kicking the crap out of each other four times a week.

"Here," Robin said, offering her a towel and a bottle of water as he took a seat in front of her. He was either oblivious to the glare she was sending his way, or he was simply not at all intimidated. Raven suspected the latter. She accepted with a sigh, and Robin grinned, pleased with his ability to quell her anger but decidedly smart enough not to bring further attention to the matter.

"You did well tonight," he praised sincerely. "Your blocking is coming more naturally, and your leg technique has improved. Now, we just need to work on building the strength of your attack before we take things up a level."

"To?" Raven raised a delicate eyebrow for emphasis as she finished drying the back of her neck with one hand and brought the bottle to her lips with the other.

"I thought I'd introduce you to some basic weaponry," he said as he stood and extended his hand in a gesture for her to take. "Come on, we should stretch."

She eyed his open palm for only a brief second before accepting it just long enough to gain her footing. "In case you haven't noticed, Boy Wonder, with me, virtually everything is a weapon," she replied flatly.

"Maybe so," he grinned before suddenly becoming serious, "and I know that you're fully capable of taking care of yourself, but…" he paused, searching for the right words. "It's just that you might not always be able to rely on your magic, Raven. Anything can happen, and I'll be damned if I lose you to some creep with more muscles than brain cells when I could've prevented it."

She stopped mid-stretch and stood upright to face him. '_If I lose you…' _Had she heard him right? What did he mean by that? Raven was confused; the words swam in fragments in her mind, and suddenly, she felt a knot of ice coil up in the pit of her stomach. Why did she have the distinct urge to run away?

"You?" It was the only thing she could manage at the moment.

He resumed his stretching, expression carefully schooled though Raven could feel the knot tighten and wondered briefly if the sentiment was actually her own. "Yes well, not just me…_we_…all of us, that is," he backpedaled, his tone secure even if his words were not. "Besides," he continued quickly, "I bet you'd be a natural with small blades."

"Perhaps," she replied distantly, preoccupied with a dawning possibility beyond either of them. A possibility she was decidedly not ready to face—at least, not now. She turned away and swallowed past her nervousness, content to finish out her stretches and forget the awkwardness of the last few moments.

"Raven?" If he'd only let her.

"Yes?" She tensed as she felt his eyes on her, but she dared not turn to face him. Not until she was sure she could control what he'd see in her eyes.

"We…no, I…" a heavy sigh, "what I meant to say was—"

The abrupt ringing of Robin's communicator pierced through the tension that had wound so tightly around them, and Raven found herself infinitely glad for the distraction. The minute relaxation of his aura told her that Robin was no less relieved.

"Go ahead, Cyborg." He was all business, now.

"Hey man, you guys better get down here. We got trouble at the museum."

He cast a glance back to find Raven already donning her cloak and making her way toward the stairs.

"On our way."

&&&&&&&&&&

Red-X was a man who knew things.

He knew that the floor plan for Jump City Museum was approximately 300,000 square feet, and that there were at least 614 security cameras and nearly twice as many motion sensors and trip wires within that space. He knew that there were nine different exits of conventional means and at least five others of less conspicuous notability. He knew that on any given shift there were no less than eight armed security guards and as many as twenty during peak visiting hours.

Similarly, he knew that at precisely 11:32 P.M. Billy, the night watchman for the East wing, would be finished scarfing down his pastrami on rye and step away from his post to indulge in his evening cigarette. And it was from this point on that the most important detail Red-X knew was this: He had five minutes.

Five minutes to scramble the encryption codes and disable the motion sensors and security cameras to the main showroom. Five minutes to unseal Khafre's sarcophagus and remove the Eye of Horus from the remains within. Five minutes to get clear of the exhibit and reinstate the codes before the backup system could kick in and trigger the alarm. Five minutes to execute on three months worth of planning, before Billy came back reeking of coffee and stale cigarettes.

All of this, he knew. Knew how to steal like he knew how to breathe, and quite frankly, he was damn good at it.

However, what he did _not_ know, and for the life of him might never figure out, was what had ever possessed him to get involved. It was the cardinal rule of thievery, and as far as Red-X was concerned it was gospel: Those who got involved, got caught. Invariably. It mattered not who with or why; the moment a thief took concern in anything other than his own affairs was the moment he set his own end in motion.

X would have done well to take his own advice.

Had he not gotten involved in the first place, they would never have known he existed. He wouldn't have felt compelled to shadow their battles, even if it _was_ just a cautionary measure for his own protection. He most definitely wouldn't have gone out of his way to save their lives—twice in some cases. And he for damn sure would _not _have jeopardized the success of a multi-million dollar heist by deliberately tripping that alarm.

But that's precisely what he did.

He tried to tell himself it was because things had simply been too easy. It wasn't a total lie; he'd been, essentially, home free by the time he stepped on the tile that activated the failsafe alert linked directly to the Titans' tower. It was tempting to say that he was looking forward to the rush that only a good fight could provide. Torturing Bird Boy was only part of the appeal.

Still, X did not make it a habit of lying to himself, and when the voice in the back of his mind nagged that it was more than that, he felt somewhat inclined to listen. Only when they arrived on the scene and immediately split up to find him did he come to a rather unsettling conclusion on the matter: He wanted to see them.

Or more specifically, he wanted to see her.

The notion was profoundly disturbing, and perhaps a little crazy, but in the strange and slightly twisted realm of X's mind it actually made sense. He'd rather eat nails than admit it, but his last encounter with the dark witch had left him more than a little shaken up. And all she had to do was look at him.

No, that wasn't right. She didn't look _at_ him she looked _through_ him.

And it was more than just a look; he could feel her presence in his mind. It was as though the moment their eyes met, they crossed the undercurrent between and stepped into one another.

It was a connection—intimate and fragile.

And he didn't like it. Not one little bit.

It was the vulnerability imposed upon him that troubled him so, and it was for this reason that he had made it a point not to cross paths with them in the months since the incident. But Red-X feared nothing, and now he simply had a point to prove.

"_This doesn't change_ _anything,"_ she'd said. And this is what it all boiled down to—he had to know whether or not that was true.

Pushing aside the anxiety and doubt in favor of casual indifference, he decided that now was as good a time as any to find out and dropped from his place in the shadows.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite bird."

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_Hope you all enjoyed!_


	2. Swept Away

_A/N: So, I hadn't planned on updating this until the 26th, but then I thought, 'eh, what the hell?' Many thanks to evilsangel for looking over this for me! And thanks so much for the reviews on the first chapter! I hope you all continue to enjoy! That said, read, enjoy, and don't forget to feed the author!  
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**  
Last Time:**

"_This doesn't change_ _anything,"_ she'd said. And this is what it all boiled down to—he had to know whether or not that was true.

Pushing aside the anxiety and doubt in favor of casual indifference, he decided that now was as good a time as any to find out and dropped from his place in the shadows.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite bird."

* * *

_**Chapter Two: Swept Away**_

"_Relax. The world will spin beside itself and suck you in, with threats and hopes beyond compare." _–Phish, _Frankie Says_

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Raven went stock-still. God, of all the criminals in Jump City, why did it have to be—?

"X," she acknowledged calmly.

"Did you miss me, Sunshine?" The question came from somewhere behind her, but Raven had yet to move; she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of watching her squirm.

"Like a case of herpes," was her scathing reply.

"Ouch," X feigned insult. "Really, I'm hurt."

"Trust me," she began, eyes glowing and dark light swimming around her fists in anticipation, "I can make it hurt."

"Ooh…promise?" The suggestive remark came as little more than a whisper in her ear, and Raven spun to send a stream of dark energy blazing from her palms. A shower of glass shards and mummified cat remains told her that not only had she missed, but that she'd also just relieved the museum of a $100,000 dead cat.

This was _so_ not her day.

He clucked his tongue mockingly, and Raven spun again and this time met him face to face. He had her by the wrists and up against the wall at arms length before she could even breathe the words of her incantation.

"Temper, temper," he chided in a singsong voice. "I'd take it easy on the magic in here, Sweets—you know, collateral damage and all."

Raven ground her teeth together as an angry flush painted her cheeks. Whether she liked it or not, X had a point. This was a damn pricey place for an all out war; besides, she didn't really want to be responsible for blowing up pieces of history if she could avoid it.

Not that she was going to let a little thing like that stop her from beating his arrogant face in.

Raven's eyes burned white again, and before X could put space between them, she had released the darkness to swallow them whole. His grip tightened in surprise, and Raven nearly winced as they emerged from the shadow out into the street.

"Well," he breathed, swaying forward enough that Raven could have felt his breath brush across her face if not for the mask. "That's a hell of a parlor trick."

"News flash," she hissed and let her body go slack just long enough to upset his newly regained balance. He stumbled, and Raven took the opportunity to bring both feet up and deliver a vicious blow to his midsection that left him skidding painfully across the asphalt on his back. She followed through the arc of her attack to flip back gracefully and land squarely on her feet. "I don't _do _tricks."

"Rather touchy on the matter, aren't we?" He was on his feet in a heartbeat, but his stance was as casual as if they were old friends.

Raven narrowed her eyes in suspicion as he brushed the dirt from his suit. Why wasn't he attacking her? She exhaled through her nose in irritation and no small amount of confusion. Of course, when it came to Red-X, confusion was the standard in her mind as of late. She pushed it back to the dark places along with the annoying twist of her stomach that seemed to accompany him; she'd let Intelligence sort it out later.

"Enough," she dismissed pointedly. "Give it back, X."

"Give what back?" he feigned innocence.

"Stop it," she snapped, more than a little annoyed. "Just hand over whatever it is you stole, and things won't have to get ugly."

"I'm quite sure I don't know what you're talking about," he replied flippantly. He strode forward then, ignoring how she tensed and summoned the dark energy to collect in her fists, before stopping a mere foot away. "Though I suppose if you'd like to search me—"

X just barely managed to dodge the abrupt blast of dark light that came screaming toward him. He flipped back to land several feet away, chuckling, as he stood upright. Raven nearly growled; he was toying with her, and she got the distinct impression that it was just to see if he could.

"Well, if you're going to be that way about it…"

And then the game was on..._really_ on.

Raven had only a fraction of a second to react as X sent a barrage of shuriken sailing her way. Time and again she brought her palms up in sweeping arcs of black light, deflecting all that he could throw at her. She dipped and dodged nimbly, but the thief was equally swift, and just as she thought she might get a moments reprieve to gain the upper hand, he shot a line of dark red adhesive from his palm to coil around her feet and jerk them out from under her.

Raven hit the ground with a pronounced thud, and it took all of her concentration to will the gray spots from her vision. When at last she could see, she realized just what a mistake that had been. Red-X was kneeling over her, blade in hand, at rest just below her chin. Her breathing hitched, and she could feel him smirking beneath the mask.

The jackass.

"Well, pretty bird," he said in that triumphantly cocky voice that made Raven's blood boil, "Not that I haven't enjoyed our little tea party, but I believe this is where we say adieu." Lightly, he traced the line of her jaw with the razor's edge, slipping it behind her ear to brush the cowl away from her face.

The air stilled around them, and Raven awaited his next move with baited breath, a million and one options for escape running through her head. But X did not move. He did not speak, and he did not breathe, either. Instead, he merely watched. Waited.

Once again, Raven was confused.

Had she not known any better, she might have thought this moment, this…_look_ had been his objective all along. Then again, the artifact she sensed stashed away in the hidden compartment of his belt suggested otherwise.

She should do something, she knew, but while the thought echoed in the walls of her mind, it wasn't until she heard the impact of steel-toed boots upon concrete that she snapped out of the haze that had settled between them. Red-X must have heard it, too, because he heaved a sigh and muttered, "Leave it to the Boy Blunder to ruin a perfectly good party."

"Raven!" Robin cried as he and the rest of the Titans came rushing onto the scene.

"You will release our friend at once!" Starfire demanded, her eyes and hands heating with green fire. Beside her, Cyborg readied his cannon, and Beastboy assumed the body of a panther.

"No need to get all bent out of shape, Cutie, we were just having a little chat." Red-X had yet to move from his position, but he had at least turned his attention to them.

It was all the distraction Raven needed.

Her eyes glowed, and the rock garden just outside the museum entrance took on a life of its own. X had no choice but to dart away as the hailstorm of sharp rocks and various items of cement landscape ornamentation came flying at him from all directions. He flipped end over end, shooting blasts of adhesive as he went to snatch the larger pieces and disrupt their trajectory.

"Titans, go!"

They wasted no time. Beastboy charged the thief with a snarl, and Starfire took to the sky, hurling starbolts as fast as she could make them. Cyborg was just behind but stopped short when he reached Raven and dropped beside her.

"You alright, dark girl?" he asked, worriedly, as he went to work on the sticky substance trapping her legs. "He didn't hurt you, did he?" He finished cutting the glue-like matter away from her limbs and offered her a hand up, which she gratefully accepted.

Robin lingered a few feet from them, an undefined expression etched into his features like stone. She caught his eye and gave them both the reassuring, not quite grin that only Raven seemed capable of.

"Not nearly as much as I hurt him," she spoke, uncurling her fist to let the amulet she'd pilfered from his belt moments ago dangle from her fingertips by its chain. "He just doesn't know it, yet."

A slow smirk crept its way onto Robin's face, and Cyborg laughed out loud. "Now that's what I'm talkin' about baby!" the older Titan crowed.

"Nice work, Raven," the Boy Wonder complimented as he extended his bo-staff and let it slice the air before him with a sharp whistle. "Now let's take this creep—"

Starfire screamed, and they looked up just in time to see their teammates caught up in the same blast of red goop. X pulled the line taut and then abruptly let loose, sending the pair spiraling like a flaming bullet through the air and directly into their waiting comrades.

Cyborg cursed as they plowed into him with the force of a Mack truck. The three went tumbling as one, straight through the wall of the neighboring office building, before barreling into the rather ornate fountain in the lobby.

A chorus of groans came from somewhere within the rubble. "Dude," Beastboy moaned, "I think I just swallowed my spleen."

Raven felt her heart start again. They were alive—a little worse for wear, perhaps, but alive nonetheless.

Robin and X were already in the thick of it when she turned back again. The electric ring of steel echoed throughout the streets as their weapons met again and again. Their moves were fluid, relentless, and full of such fire that Raven felt they might burn up right before her very eyes. It was more than just stopping a robbery, more than just making a quick escape. It was personal.

She couldn't have interfered if she'd wanted to. And she most definitely wanted to, but Robin was close—too close; so, she had no choice but to sit back on the sidelines and wait for her chance. It came sooner than she might have expected.

They squared off, weapons locked together and neither one giving an inch. Finally, Red-X spoke, breaking the tension around them. "Look, kid, much as I'd like to stay and play bowling for Titans, I've got some place to be."

"You're not going anywhere," Robin growled.

"Guess again." And then X made his move. Spreading his arms farther to slide the two hand-held blades in opposite directions along the surface of Robin's bo, X turned his shoulder in just the slightest bit, upsetting the balance of pressure between them. Robin had no choice but to follow through with the bend, leaving his back entirely exposed.

What happened next was something of a blur, and from what Raven could tell it involved a well-placed kick into the side of a building and an explosion, but beyond that she couldn't be sure of anything other than the fact that Robin was now out of commission.

"Robin!" she cried. Her gut reaction was to go to him, dig him out of the debris; and she would have, but when the smoke cleared she was facing the devil once more.

"Looks like it's just the two of us, again, Sunshine," he remarked casually.

Her eyes burned with white flame, and Raven felt herself getting dangerously close to losing control. "Not for long," she hissed.

And with that, dark energy encompassed a pickup truck parked along the curb and sent it screaming toward the thief. X didn't so much as flinch, though, and the second it came into range he leapt onto the hood. The thief ran the length of the vehicle and used it as a springboard to flip from the back of the bed. He landed directly behind the sorceress, gracefully, and immediately crouched low, striking out with a powerful kick to sweep her legs out from under her.

She jumped straight into the air, barely missing the assault aimed toward her legs, but by the time her feet hit the ground he was standing upright. He grabbed her wrist painfully tight and jerked her toward him.

"Not bad, girl," he commented, squeezing her wrist until she gasped and the amulet she had clenched in her fist dropped to hang from her fingers again. "But I'll be taking this back."

"Not on your life," she retorted, making a grab for the body of the medallion with her free hand just as he did the same. Arms locked as they grappled with it, both unwilling to lose even the slightest hold. He was strong though, physically, much stronger than Raven, and she knew it was just a matter of time before he overpowered her completely. It was time to end this.

Magic pooled into her fists, and X tensed as she spoke. "Azarath…Metrion…Zinthos."

And that was when it happened.

It started as a whine, a low, keening wail from far away, and Raven felt dread settle into the pit of her stomach as their palms began to shine with a strange golden glow. The energy began to snake its way around their arms and down the length of their bodies, freezing them up from the inside out—set in stone and unable to let go.

The howling got louder, and the light got brighter, oscillating in a whirlwind around them. The markings around the thick, gold perimeter of the talisman lifted and burned into the flesh of their palms, causing them both to cry out in agony. The emerald set into the center morphed into something unknown, a swirling mass of luminescence and a shrill cacophony of screeching and bitter cold.

The wailing came full force now, like a freight train screaming down the tracks, and Raven could barely make out the muffled cry of her name from somewhere outside her prison. It was the last thing she remembered before her body deconstructed, pulling itself apart like a house of sand, the scream in her throat lost to the wind.

Just like the rest of her.

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_Thanks for reading! Peace, all._

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	3. Stuck in the Middle With You

**Disclaimer: Yep, I still got nothin'.**_  
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_A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay with this chapter, everyone! My laptop crashed and I had to redo everything I'd had written, which was all of this chapter and part of the next. Hopefully, the chapter will make up for the wait, though. Thanks so much to all of you who've taken time to read and review this. It makes me so happy to see there are those who enjoy reading this little project of mine as much as I enjoy writing it! _

_And special thanks to the lovely Absentia for playing editor on this one for me! She's wonderful, and you should all be reading her stuff right now because it's so much better than anything I could turn out for you. Go. Shoo. You know you want to check her out. :)_

_Peace, all._

**Last Time:**

The wailing came full force now, like a freight train screaming down the tracks, and Raven could barely make out the muffled cry of her name from somewhere outside her prison. It was the last thing she remembered before her body deconstructed, pulling itself apart like a house of sand, the scream in her throat lost to the wind.

Just like the rest of her.

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_**Chapter Three: Stuck in the Middle With You**_

"_Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right; here I am, stuck in the middle with you." --_Stealers Wheel

Her molecules collected like a swarm of locusts, fusing in pixels of tissue and bone, before the flesh wound its way around her foundation and stitched her back together like a doll made of gunnysack and sawdust. And when at last she drew breath, Raven did the only thing she could do at the moment.

She fell to her knees and retched.

It was a rather gruesome and undignified affair, though not within her ability to control for the time being. In fact, if her head didn't quit spinning she might just have a repeat performance. The muscles of her stomach seized and clenched violently, and Raven collapsed back to the ground with a sharp cry, unable to do anything more than curl in on herself and writhe until her body adjusted to its painful transition. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she stilled; her breathing slowed and she let the echo of the wind ease her into her senses and bring her back, slowly, to some measure of control.

Several long moments passed with her lying, there, in the dirt, gaining focus on the fragments in her mind and putting them back together, and when it seemed the fog in her vision began to dissipate and the world would hold still, she propped herself upright on her forearms and rolled over to her hands and knees. It was a move she almost instantly regretted, and she hissed at the sudden, sharp sting in her palms. Nonplussed, Raven sat up on her knees and turned her hands to examine the source of her discomfort, only to find strange symbols etched into the flesh as though she'd been branded. Her brow furrowed in concentration, and she brought a delicate finger up to trace the lines of a particularly intricate design. Were those…hieroglyphics?

Clarity crept in on her like a frost settling over her skin, and for the first time, Raven took a good, long look at her surroundings.

"Dear Azar," she breathed, feeling a distinct chill settle in her spine. It wasn't the roiling, black mass that stretched across the sky like bubbling tar, or the distant, tortured screaming of clashing winds and once living things, that filled her belly with bile and dread; and it wasn't the gaping chasm of absolute night that lie before her, or the stench of grave soil as it spilled atop fingers that dug into the ground for what solidity they could get, that tightened her chest with fear.

After all, this wasn't the first time Raven stood at the mouth of Hell.

And therein lie the crux of it all. It was the sickening familiarity of it that sank into her bones and left her thoroughly weak and bitter and cold inside. Admittedly, the environment had changed from her last encounter, but Hell was Hell, no matter what mythology it was constructed upon. And Raven knew the darkness when she saw it, just as she knew she couldn't go through this again. Not this time.

Not without Robin.

He'd been the one to protect her when she was just small. To stand with her when there was nothing left to stand for. To guide her when she could not find her way. Who, now, would lead her home?

"Ugh," came the low, sickly groan from somewhere on the ground.

Oh, no.

"God, who dropped a building on my head?"

_Hell_, no.

"Idiot," she hissed, causing him to jump at the sound of her voice. She fixed him with one of her most intimidating glares. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

The thief shook his head to gain focus and instantly dropped back to the earth, shaking as though he'd been struck by lightening. If it hadn't been for the fact that he'd gotten them into this mess to begin with, she might have felt sorry for him. As it was, she didn't, and while she didn't particularly enjoy watching him sink into himself, groaning helplessly for the next twenty minutes, she wasn't exactly inclined to help him at the moment. Provided she even could have, which she doubted.

Similarly, when he eventually came back to himself and finally managed to find his footing in the not quite solid earth, she did little more than scowl, eyeing him with irritation and expectancy. "Well?" She asked irritably.

The thief coughed and returned her look of displeasure, and though she couldn't see it, she certainly felt it. "What I've done? Don't you mean what _we've_ done?" he redirected, brushing the dirt from his uniform nonchalantly but wincing as he grazed over the raw skin, exposed through the burned edges of his gloves.

If Raven noticed, she obviously didn't care.

"_We_ didn't steal a cursed Egyptian artifact," she said, not at all amused.

"No, but last I recall, everything was just fine until _you_ had to go all hocus pocus," the thief elaborated. "Whatever happened here," he paused to look around, "you set it off."

Raven clamped down on the anger that threatened to spill over into her consciousness and squared off with the arrogant thief. "Well, if you would have just given it back like I told you—"

X laughed outright. "Yes, because I know plenty of thieves in the business of stealing just to hand over the goods when asked politely enough."

Raven squeezed her eyes shut and began to chant inwardly. She was just _this _close to _politely_ beating him to death with his own arms. And as much as she hated to admit it, she was going to need both him and his arms if they expected to find a way out of here. The Titan sighed; she might not _want_ to do this without Robin, but she was beginning to realize that she didn't exactly have a choice. She couldn't do this alone, and if it was one thing Robin had taught her over the years, it was that giving up was never an option. He'd trusted her, believed in her when she couldn't believe in herself. Walked through Hell with his greatest enemy based on that belief, just to bring her back to them! To show her that there was always hope. To give her something to live for. Who was she to disregard his effort, now? No, she wouldn't have to do this without Robin; he'd left a piece of himself with her always after that, stronger than the bond they already shared—hopefully, it would be enough to sustain her. It had to be…

The sorceress exhaled sharply, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "This is pointless. Arguing will get us nowhere, fast. We need a plan."

"So now it's _we_?" X taunted, and Raven glowered.

"Until I grow weary of you and use your intestines for jump rope," she deadpanned.

"You sweet talker, you," the thief replied amusedly.

Raven rolled her eyes, clutching to the end of her virtually non-existent patience. "What exactly did you steal?"

* * *

Silence was something X was entirely accustomed to in his line of work. And despite the impression he left when in the company of a certain group of superheroes, he was a relatively quiet person by nature. Idle words meant little to him, and he had discovered rather early on that the world had much more to offer when one took the time to listen to what that might be.

He rather wished he'd listened a bit more intently when it came to the Eye of Horus.

…Not to mention a certain dark, violet haired sorceress, as it were.

X sighed heavily, if not a little frustrated; he wasn't sure how long they'd been traveling, at this point. It was one of the first things he'd noticed about this strange place—time was entirely irrelevant; nothing changed. From the darkness of their surroundings to the natural progressions of his own body…it was as though time simply didn't pass at all, and he wondered if they had actually been walking for hours or possibly even days.

However, regardless of how long they'd been moving, it did nothing to change the fact that _she_ hadn't so much as breathed audibly. And while X didn't _mind _the quiet, the utter lack of communication between them wasn't helping the situation at all. He wasn't the type to just go blindly traipsing into oblivion with his enemies…especially when he wasn't in complete control. He was impulsive, yes, but not stupid. Yet, here he was, following Raven, of all people, into the depths of who knew what, without the first clue where they were headed, and no indication as to what was really going on. In fact, beyond a few muttered ramblings about Egyptian polytheism (what _that_ had to do with anything he didn't know), she hadn't told him a damn thing—not where they were, not about the crap burned into his hands, and certainly not how the hell they were going to get home.

To say that circumstances were irritating would have, quite possibly, been the understatement of the century.

"Alright, doll, that's it," he said, stepping along the craggy outcropping of rock on a widened portion of the narrow, spiral path they'd been following and planting himself firmly in her way, arms crossed impatiently. "We're not moving another step until you tell me just what the hell's going on here and where you're taking us."

"Raven," she intoned.

"Excuse me?"

"It's my name," she replied, clearly annoyed. "Not doll, not sunshine, not sweets, and _not_ pretty bird." She'd nearly cringed on the last one, he could tell. He'd have to use that one more often.

"Raven. Learn it. Use it."

"Whatever you say, pretty bird, but don't change the subject."

She flushed angrily and for a moment looked ready to give him a tongue-lashing that would make even Batman blush; however, Raven wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she shut her mouth with an audible snap and brushed past him, without so much as a backward glance.

Or at least she would have, if not for the bruising grip on her upper arm as he spun her to face him directly.

"I don't think so."

The light was scarce, and not really light at all so much as a strange, soft glow coming from the ground to illuminate the way of their footsteps, and had it not been for the night-vision his mask provided, he might have missed the deadly gleam of her eyes as she looked from the place where his fingers were wrapped around her bicep up to the hollow of his eyes.

"Let. Go."

X swallowed, knowing he was treading on dangerous ground but determined not to give away the upper hand. "Or what?"

The ground buckled and cracked as if in reply, and X cursed as the earth lurched with enough force to knock their feet out from under them.

"Damn it, girl," X growled, sitting up in the dirt, "was that really necessary?"

"That wasn't me, genius," she snapped.

"Then what the—"

The earth groaned and hissed in response, and they scuttled back nervously as the ground began to quake, a large bulge growing below the surface of the rock. It stretched and screamed until, finally, the pressure became too great and it exploded, spewing stones and foul smelling gas into the air, and pitching both thief and Titan headlong over the cliff side.

X struck out, grasping and clawing what little his hands could take purchase of, and he hissed through his teeth as rock and dirt bit into the marred flesh of his palms through the burned places of his gloves, while he clung there, precariously on the edge. He felt the muscles of his legs stretch and jerk abruptly, and Red-X looked down to find Raven hanging above the abyss, gripping his ankles like a lifeline.

"Shouldn't you be flying right about now?" X asked dryly, the tension in his voice noticeable even through the distorter.

"I—" she gasped as they slipped several inches down the cliff side before X maintained his grip, and they stopped short. "I _can't_."

"What?! What do you mean you can't?"

"It isn't…safe."

"Well, in case you haven't noticed," he spoke, peering down into her face, "this isn't exactly what you'd call safe."

"Look," she began angrily, only to have a startled cry escape her lips and her eyes widen in shock.

X followed her gaze to find a great soldier of bone and rotting tissue towering over them, its attire a filthy linen kilt that smelled of death and a crown of petrified snakes upon its jackal-like head. The creature snarled, teeth of knives glinting in the low, black light and inhuman maw gaping as it took a mighty swing with its scythe.

X cursed and jerked his hand away from the ledge just as the giant blade smashed into the ground where it had been. The creature screeched and swung again, showering them with rocks and dust as X switched hands and it missed again.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed, out of breath as he swapped yet again. "I can't keep this up." He caught her eye for a heartbeat, and Raven nodded, tightening her hold on him and squeezing her eyes shut.

"So long, bones," the thief saluted, and without so much as a second thought, he let go to the darkness that swallowed them whole.

* * *

"Hey man, you still up?" Cyborg asked, though he wasn't surprised to find him there, in the dark of his research room at three in the morning, watching the surveillance footage of the fight over and over again. Similarly, he wasn't surprised when Robin didn't even appear to have heard him, though Cyborg knew he probably had.

"Look, Rob," he said, approaching cautiously and placing a hand on the Boy Wonder's shoulder to give a light squeeze. "We've been over the video a hundred times…there's just nothing there."

"And what if you're wrong, Cyborg?" Robin asked coldly, pointedly shrugging the hand from his shoulder. "We could've missed something. Anything. People just don't vanish into thin air."

"No, they don't," he agreed. "But we've run every test there is to run on that amulet and searched the entire city over. And we still got nothin'."

"That's not good enough," Robin growled.

"I know," Cyborg said quietly.

"I…we _will _find her."

Cyborg smiled a little. "I know that, too. But it's been three days, man. How do you expect to find her if you're too exhausted to function? You're no good to her like that."

Robin's expression softened slightly, then. Cyborg had a point, it seemed. Reluctantly, he stopped the video and exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly. "Point taken, Cy."

"Good. Now go get some sleep," the half-cybernetic Titan said, satisfied with himself. "We've got that Egyptologist coming in the morning."

"Right, just give me a minute to put these with the others," he said, rifling through the mountain of papers he'd collected on the Eye of Horus.

"Alright. G'night, Rob."

"Goodnight, Cyborg," he said as he stood, putting documents in the appropriate folders.

And when the last was in its place and Cyborg in his room, the television came back on.

* * *

'_Well, this is oddly familiar,'_ X thought as he continued to freefall into the chasm of shadow, the sorceress clamped onto his legs so tight he'd almost lost the feeling in his feet. Unfortunately, teleportation would be of no use to them without some idea of their surroundings, and he knew that adhesive would break under the strain.

'_Only one thing left…'_ he realized, pulling the grappling gun from his belt. "Hang tight!" he shouted, firing blindly and praying for it to catch.

And catch it did. X felt his stomach lurch violently, and he cried out in agony as the sudden motion yanked his left shoulder completely out of socket. He dropped the one hand, screaming, and winced even further as the pressure doubled on the ruined skin of his torn, bleeding palm.

His vision began to swim, and he could hear Raven calling to him but suddenly couldn't understand what she was saying. By the time they were about to meet the solid stone wall in a deadly collision, X had lost consciousness.

* * *

Raven had never really believed in luck until then, and if there had been any other possible explanation for it, she wouldn't have believed in it still. But there was just no way around it. The fact that in the middle of a black hole of nothing there would be a lone tree growing out from the side of a solid slab of rock, and that he'd managed to slow their descent enough and let go just in time to avoid crashing into that rock while perfectly in line with said tree, so that she could just reach the farthest branch and still hang on to him…

Pure, dumb luck.

And she was entirely grateful for it.

Of course, getting him up into the safety of the thicker limbs was nearly a biblical effort. It took her the better part of an hour, and many nasty gashes and scrapes, but at last she managed to heft the thief up against the trunk, situating him to lean back with his legs on either side of the massive branch.

She collapsed back on the bough, then, taking several long moments to catch her breath and wiping the sweat from her brow. Who knew Red-X was so damn heavy?

Finally, Raven sat up to face him, knowing that it was best to reset his shoulder before he woke. She stood, easing closer to him in tiny steps, before settling directly in front of him, her calves atop his. Carefully, she took his left arm in one hand and steadied his torso with the other. With one swift and forceful tug, the limb popped back into place with a sickening crack that made Raven's skin crawl.

He might be an arrogant pain in the ass, but she was glad he hadn't been awake for the pain it would have caused.

She moved his arm just a bit, making certain the joint was in tact before easing it back down and removing the remains of his gloves, revealing the ravaged, bloody mess that had been his hands. Whatever the spell had been, it had certainly left its mark—in blistering, angry furrows that cut straight through fabric and flesh, nearly to the bone, and she cringed, feeling his pain as keenly as her own. She'd have to wrap them; Raven exhaled heavily and removed her cloak with a frown, knowing that it was all she had. If his cape was anything like Robin's, and she knew it was, it would never tear as easily as she needed.

The Titan ripped along the bottom edge, pulling off long, thin strips of cloth until she had enough to bandage both their hands, and set to work on her own. When she was finished Raven dressed his, working quickly, and rarely taking her eyes away from her surroundings.

Bloody hands and dislocated joints were, quite frankly, the least of their worries.

It was only a matter of time before the ghouls of this place would come for them, and she knew it. The bone soldier hadn't been alone; she could sense others upon the ridge waiting for them, and while they were certainly the most imminent threat, they were by no means the only one. And as long as she couldn't use her powers, they were vulnerable out in the open like this. She had to get them out of there and into safer territory.

If there was any.

She exhaled, tiredly, before easing the gloves back into place on his hands and settling what was left of her cloak about her shoulders. It only reached the top of her knees at this point, but as far as Raven was concerned it was better than nothing. Especially when she considered the possibility of wandering eyes…she'd hate to have to use them for target practice; he might need to see to help get them home, after all.

"X," she whispered as she shook him lightly, trying to rouse him without tipping them both over the edge. "X, wake up. We have to move, it isn't safe here."

She sighed. Nothing.

"X," she spoke more forcefully, reaching up to grip his uninjured shoulder and give it a firm shake. However, just as her fingertips grazed past the armored fabric of his collar, he snatched her by the wrist, stopping her in mid-motion.

Her eyes widened a tiny fraction, but it was the only outward sign of surprise she gave. "Come on," she spoke, perhaps a bit urgently. "We've gotta get out of this tree while we've got the chance."

The thief seemed to come back to himself then, taking a moment to look over his hands and roll his shoulder around a bit before sitting up straight to face her. "No," he shook his head fiercely. "No way, not until I get some answers."

"We don't have time for that now," Raven insisted.

"Something tells me we'll never have time, so you might as well spill it now, pretty bird. I want to know what the hell's going on. What the hell was that thing? And more importantly, where are we, and where are we going?"

She sighed, exasperated. He wasn't going to give up on this. "Alright, look," she said, massaging her temples to ease the throbbing headache creeping in on her. "It's just a guess, but I _think_ we might be somewhere in the Egyptian realm of the dead."

"The underworld?"

"Essentially, yes."

X paused a moment, apparently mulling it over. "Okay," he drawled out, oddly accepting of the situation. "Then how are we supposed to get out?"

Raven shrugged, unsure. "I suppose we just keep going until we find what we're looking for."

"Which is?"

"A spiritual nexus, where the energy of this world is at its most powerful—and volatile. We'll have a better chance of reopening the gate there."

"How will we know when we find it?"

"I'll be able to feel it," she said hastily. "Satisfied? We should—"

"Not so fast," he interrupted, standing up to catch her by the arm as she made her way around him, determined to begin her descent. "Why can't you just use your powers and get us out of here? I've seen what you can do, sunshine, don't tell me it isn't possible."

"So is tearing apart the fabric of all reality," she deadpanned, pulling away from him. "Mixing magic in a spiritual realm like this is dangerous. Until I know for certain what we're dealing with, I'd prefer to keep all mystical energy dormant."

"Now if you _don't_ mind, I really think—Gah!" Raven cried out in surprise as X grabbed the front of her tattered cloak and jerked her forward into his chest, a shower of splintered wood littering the air from the impact of the arrow, now jutting out sharply from where she'd been standing just a millisecond before.

Her eyes widened as the whistle of incoming projectiles filled the air, and arrows began to strike the tree with the force of tiny meteors.

"Let's move!" he cried, grabbing her around the waist and jumping down from branch to branch. "Looks like bones made some friends."

"Put me down!" she huffed indignantly.

"Deal with it; it's quicker this way."

Raven glowered, wishing she had her powers. It was going to be a long, long trip, indeed.

* * *

_A/N: Well, I hope you all enjoyed! Thanks again for reading, and please feed the author on your way out!  
_


	4. Said the Joker to the Thief

**A/N: So it's been awhile, eh? My apologies, life has pretty much decided to kick me in the ass this year. Unfortunately, it happens, but it looks as though things might finally be looking up for me, so maybe the gears won't be gummed up for long. Keep your fingers crossed. **

**Special thanks to the lovely Moon Step for looking over this one for me (even though she doesn't even play in this fandom...yet). And much love to Absentia for playing beta and sounding board; she's not feeling so well right now, so she hasn't really had the chance to tear into this chapter for edits yet, but as soon as she does, I'll be posting a revamp, so keep your eyes peeled in the next few days for changes.**

**And thank you all so very much for sticking with this fic. I truly appreciate every one of your reviews. You're all wonderful.**

_**Chapter Four: Said the Joker to the Thief**_

"_On the wrong way out, on the causeway through to neverwhere. Dear my friends, in the time we've spent forever after beyond this, when will our nightmare ever end?" _--Coheed and Cambria, _Three Evils (Embodied in Love and Shadow)_

"There it is," she hissed in his ear breathlessly. "I can see the bottom."

X let out a muted grunt through clenched teeth as he continued to descend the cliff side, the sorceress clinging to his back, in a position she'd expressly forbade him to even _consider_ the immodesty of (damned if she didn't take the fun out of everything), and the muscles of his still sensitive shoulder screaming in protest with every movement.

"How far?" He questioned, breathing labored and strain evident in his voice, despite the distorter.

"Fifteen, maybe twenty feet," she responded.

"What about...an...exit? See anything?"

Raven winced internally, feeling a particularly sharp pain emanate through his aura and feeling more than a little guilty for adding her weight to the already difficult burden. Granted, if she had any choice in the matter, she'd have been climbing down on her own, but they only had gear enough for one. And God knew taking the path was out of the question.

It was the same story every time; the moment they touched ground, the bone soldiers would come for them, clawing and screaming their way up from the earth. Raven was of the impression that they were among the lost—souls whose bodies never found proper rest and ritual—now damned to spend eternity as sentries for a realm that allowed them no quarter. 'The King's Men', she had taken to calling them.

Swallowing her dread, Raven craned her neck to scan the darkness below, searching for any possible means of escape, regardless of how temporary. Finally, her gaze settled on the far end to a crude archway of rock and shadow. The space that lie beyond it was swallowed in a veil of absolute night, a mystery she could only guess at and, quite frankly, didn't want to. Not that she had a choice in that, either. The witch sighed heavily, knowing it was their only option but hating it just the same. No good would come from that gateway, she knew.

"There," she gestured with her chin even though she knew he couldn't see it. "At the far end. A gateway."

The thief nodded stiffly. "Right, then...We're gonna have to haul ass, Sunshine. Those things will be on us the second we hit the ground. You ready for that?"

Raven paused, heaving a breath in preparation. "As I'll ever be."

"Alright, I'm gonna drop us on the count of three. Get ready to roll your knees up. One...Two—"

"X," Raven interrupted urgently. "Listen, about the other side--"

"Look, I know," the thief started in, irritably. "We're not up for a stroll in the park. I get it. But I'll be damned if I lay down and die right here."

The sorceress fell silent at the fervor of his proclamation. He was determined, she'd give him that. Granted, he could have absolutely no idea what they were truly up against, but maybe, just _maybe_, with passion like that on their side, they'd have a chance.

Or she could be deluding herself, there was always that. At least, it seemed, she wasn't alone in the matter.

"Alright," she breathed, offering a stiff nod of acknowledgment. "Let's do this, then. One...Two..."

Raven felt the breath leave her lungs, and she barely managed to break away from the thief and brace for impact as they plummeted the remaining distance. The titan grunted as she made a painful collision with the ground and rolled end over end before coming to rest in a messy heap of blood and dust at the base of the pit wall.

"Three," she groaned, lifting herself up slowly and blowing a steady stream of air up to remove the renegade hair from her eyes. Raven blinked rapidly to focus her vision, only to find the torn, bloody glove of Red-X thrust into her line of sight without preamble.

Her gaze sharpened as she looked up at the thief and pinned him with a decidedly critical glare. She just _knew_ he was grinning like an idiot under that mask.

"Let's go, Princess, we ain't got all day."

Raven pulled herself to her feet with a rather unladylike snort, deliberately avoiding his extended hand. X merely shrugged, entirely without remorse as he set off toward the gate at a flat run. "Suit yourself," he called.

Raven wasted no time, falling into step with him as they ran the, roughly, two hundred yard stretch to the stone archway that would lead them further into Hell. "You could have warned me," she growled, mostly to herself, though X still heard.

Not that he cared. In fact, the arrogant bastard thought it was funny. She could hear him laughing under his breath the whole way. Ooh, what she wouldn't give for her powers right about now. Raven couldn't wait until they were out of this mess; she'd show him a thing or two. And she'd start by stomping his conceited aa—

"--ahhss!" Raven cried out as the ground lurched beneath her feet, knocking her face first into the dirt. The witch sputtered and coughed, the burn of dead earth stinging her nostrils as she lifted to her hands and knees, desperate to keep moving. She dug her toes into the ground and lunged forward, only to be jerked back abruptly by the back of her cloak.

The Titan grunted as she met the dirt once again, rolling over to get a better look at her current impediment. She gasped, wishing she hadn't, as the gnarled bone hand that was jutting up from the rocky soil wrapped around the base of her cloak and pulled again, dragging her further back, closer still to the newly forming chasm in the earth.

Raven was having a difficult time breathing as she fought against the creature, the cloth around her neck constricting her airway as she struggled to break free. The sorceress could feel the stones digging into the flesh of her outer thighs, ripping her fingernails down to the quick and blood as the creature continued to gain ground. If she could just afford to let go she'd rid herself of the garment, but the beast was so powerful, it was taking everything she had just to keep from going under, as it was. It was a losing battle, she realized, and Raven was as close to panic as she'd ever been when the tension in her cape suddenly let loose with an audible snap.

The red shuriken resonated with a metallic thrum as it embedded in the rock wall, material from Raven's cloak raining down like confetti as she tumbled forward gracelessly, and the sorceress coughed heavily with the rush of air that filled her abused throat and lungs.

"Come on, Sunshine, let's move!" he cried.

Raven didn't have to be told twice. Ignoring the sting and throb of her wounds, she found strength and pushed up, taking off at a dead run, despite the screaming in her lungs as she fell into step beside him. The impact of her feet against the ground burned her down to the core, her muscles taut and stretched and aching, but she pushed on resolutely. She dare not look back each time she heard the earth pop and hiss or felt the ghoulish screeching vibrate through her chest. They were too close now. Just a few more yards...

"Fuck!" she heard him say on a painful hiss. Raven glanced over to find him clutching his side, a lag evident in his stride.

"What is it?" she asked, looking him over intently. To his credit, he hadn't stopped running, but Raven could see him pull his hand back just slightly to peer down at the injury.

"It's nothing, don't worry about it. Just keep going."

She raised an incredulous eyebrow, jumping over a sudden bulging crack in the soil at the precise moment he did the same. She heard him grunt as they landed and only intensified her gaze.

"Look he just nicked me, damn it! Pay attention to what the hell you're do—"

Raven collided with the beast at a full run, knocking them both backward. The creature grunted and lost its step, while Raven fell completely, landing on her backside in the dirt.

"--ing." X stopped cold as they both found themselves suddenly face to face with the business end of a rather unfriendly looking spear. Raven scrambled to her feet and backed up on instinct, only to feel an unpleasant prick at her behind that ceased her movement, and forced her forward again, shifting her to meet back to back with Red-X.

She swallowed hard, knowing; they were surrounded.

The Titan brought her hands up slowly, as though in surrender, unknowingly mirroring the actions of the thief at her back, as the bone men closed in on them, all manner of blades and horror at the ready.

"Shit. This is bad," X muttered.

Raven cringed as they formed a tight, uniform circle around them, spears and scythes poised to strike. "No kidding?" came the droll reply.

"Glad to see you haven't lost that sparkling sense of humor."

She might have responded had it not been for the one striding toward her, the others allowing him passage with ease. He was larger than the rest, his weapon much more prominent. She recognized him immediately as the one they'd met on the ridge in their first encounter. He was distinctive from the others; most were little more than bone, only distinguishable by the weapon they carried, and their attire was without ornamentation. Now, as he stood before her, Raven could feel the difference as much as she could see it. The energy surrounding the creature was immense. Dark and twisted malevolence radiated from him in palpable waves that threatened to crush the lungs in her chest with the weight of it. With the exception of her father, Raven had never felt such unadulterated hate and despair from another.

Raven stifled a gasp as he hooked the edge of his scythe beneath her chin and brought her eyes to meet him full on. Black fire burned in the sockets where his eyes should have been, and he glared at her with such emptiness and loathing that she couldn't stop the strangled whimper from escaping her lips.

Behind her, Red-X tensed.

"Ölümlü. Sen adanmış ground yürürsün." (1) The voice was a stinging, polyphonic rasp that had Raven reeling.

"...What did he say?" X asked in a hush.

Raven had no clue. Just her luck, fourteen different languages rolling around up there and not one of them was remotely close to Egyptian. She'd have to make a point to learn it if they managed to survive.

"Well?"

"He wants a cheeseburger," she replied sardonically.

"Smartass."

"Ölümlü. Sen adanmış ground yürürsün!" The creature insisted once more, digging the blade further into the skin of her neck and drawing a thin line of blood from the puncture it made in her smooth, white flesh.

X could feel the sorceress hiss and begin to wriggle and knew they were out of time. He scanned their surroundings for any means of escape, and his eyes landed on the gate, not so very far away, an idea forming in his head. The soldiers were fast, but hopefully not fast enough.

"Reach around and grab me," he whispered hurriedly.

"Wha?" Raven spoke, her voice strained.

"Grab me," he repeated. "I promise you'll enjoy it."

"If by 'grab' you mean strangle and maim, then yes, I believe I will."

X chuckled in spite of himself, reaching around quickly with one hand to secure her around the waist and delighting in the surprised 'eep' that followed. "Always knew you were the kinky one."

It was then she realized his intent, and she latched onto his other side as he had with her, pressing herself as tightly against him as her position allowed. The movement must have set their captor off, because the moment she did, she felt his energy flare, and he drew back, bringing the sickle up in a wide arc to split her down the middle with one mighty blow...

Only to slice through the slow curling wisps of smoke they left behind.

The reaction was instantaneous. No sooner had they disappeared than the General let loose a great bellow of rage, a stream of curses and orders as he sent them thundering upon the gate.

X and Raven materialized out of thin air before the archway, arrows embedded into the crevices of rocks around them from the soldiers on the ridge. The others were coming, blood lust thick in the their throats.

"How do we open it?" X questioned, pressing against the deep cavern wall set back from the gateway. "The damn thing is solid rock!"

Raven shook her head. "No," she muttered, frustrated. "No, there's a way. There's always a trigger somewhere."

She felt along the rough stone passage as he was, desperation growing between them as the beasts drew closer. X cursed, making to strike the wall in impatience, when she grabbed hold of his wrist and leveled him with a stony gaze.

"Don't lose it now," she told him coolly.

A harsh retort died on his lips when his hand—no, their hands—suddenly began to glow. Their eyes met in dawning realization, and without words, their fingers interlaced and pressed against the surface of the gate.

Ancient script illuminated along the front of the arch in the same soft, golden glow that left their palms, and X swore at the sudden fire in his fingers, his veins, as the gate began to shimmer and liquefy, the stone giving way to the realm beyond.

A bitter screeching echoed amongst the chaos of whistling projectiles and blades, and Red-X felt his foundation give out from under him once more, his limbs pulling and stretching out into nothing as they fazed into the dark and unforgiving bowels of Hell.

* * *

Something about it called to him. Maybe it was the luster and shine of its golden ridges, or the way the light seemed to hum whenever it reflected off the planes of the emerald set in the center. He could almost hear it, as though it were speaking to him—a child's whisper sent on the lilt of a Summer wind from a hundred miles away. Now, if he could just figure out what it was saying... 

It was like music. Or soft, slow tendrils of smoke, curling and caressing his skin, weaving a mystery around his senses. A puzzle he could not solve.

Or touch.

Much like Raven, herself, when he really thought about it. Who would ever think that just the simple sweep of his fingertips could have the power to open the door to worlds unexplored...or send him spiraling into the depths of utter devastation? How unfair, Robin thought, that the most beautiful of things were so often the most dangerous.

And yet, oh so tempting.

Robin lifted his hand just slightly, pausing just before it breached the glass casing and hovering over the latch on the panel inside. If he could just touch it, he'd be so much closer to the mystery. So much closer to finding her...

"Robin." Frustrated. Harsh.

He recoiled, snatching his hand back as though he'd grabbed hot coals and shaking himself to abrupt lucidity. The boy wonder cleared his throat at Cyborg's reproachful stare and got the distinct impression that it hadn't been the first time the older Titan had said his name. Disappointment...fear...worry...he found them all, etched into the dark lines of Cyborg's face and eyes, and felt guilt stick in his throat.

He choked it down to swim in his stomach with the rest of his failures.

"Has the good doctor taken his leave?"

Cyborg sighed, looking far older than he should as he stretched the long, steel fingers out across his nose to rub his eyes and down the length of his jaw. He'd let the moment go. For now. "Yeah, he's gone. The little weasel..." he finished on a grumble.

To say that their consultation with Dr. Jerome Muzzleby hadn't gone well would have been a dire understatement. Sure, he was renowned in the field of Egyptology, a published award winner in cultural anthropology, and came highly recommended by the Jump City Museum curator. And he'd been more than willing to assist the Titans in their plight.

And as far as Robin was concerned, he was a squirrelly little toad.

He'd been rather overzealous about the whole affair. In fact, one might say he was absolutely ecstatic at their misfortune. Never mind that Raven was, perhaps, trapped in some obscure hole in the universe with their _enemy_, and quite likely in serious danger, because it was such an exciting development for the scientific and anthropological communities!

Naturally, the situation only escalated.

Starfire was the first to lose her cool, and by the time Robin intervened, Beast Boy had quite literally bitten Dr. Muzzleby in the ass. Needless to say, the meeting only degenerated after that and, unfortunately, yielded little more information than what they'd already managed to find on their own.

Robin sighed heavily, wishing like hell he had more than hunches and maybes and prayers. All the prayer in the world wouldn't bring her home, that he knew. The Titan leader hung his head in his hands, resting elbows gone heavy with burden on his knees.

"Where are Star and BB?" he asked wearily.

"I sent 'em out for some food. Thought they could use the air," Cyborg responded, leaning on the edge of the table and peering down on the hunched shoulders of their leader, something soft and sad and all too knowing written in the shine of his human eye. "Maybe you could, too."

Robin exhaled sharply, a wry chuckle slipping out from the cracks in his heart. "I suppose that's not such a bad idea," he spoke, no small amount of self-loathing and frustration coating his tongue.

"It's not?" Cyborg said, confused, as Robin stood abruptly and began shuffling around the room anxiously. He rifled through stacks of papers, muttering somewhat to himself, before he emerged with something he apparently deemed of value.

"Take this," he said, handing him the list he'd pulled from the pile and ignoring the perplexed tilt of Cyborg's head. "I want you to call the shipyard and obtain records for all exports scheduled in the next month, including anything canceled or postponed." Robin turned his back on the metal Titan, cast his pensive gaze out across the bay, and sighed. "Cross-reference the data with the names on that list. Maybe we'll come up with a hit."

Cyborg nodded firmly though Robin had not yet faced him. "...So—"

"When Starfire and Beast Boy get back, send one of them out on patrol. We can't let the city fall apart just because..." Robin trailed off, but Cyborg could feel the words that stuck in his throat as though they were his own.

_'Just because we are.'_

"What about you?" Cyborg asked, knowing Robin well enough by now to know that he was up to something. His thoughts were only confirmed when Robin slung his cape, followed by his gloves, across the back of the chair he'd been sitting in for days. "Where are you going, man?"

The Boy Wonder's mouth set in a grim line as he set Cyborg directly in his sight for the first time that day. "A guy like Red-X doesn't pull a job like this without having all his ducks in a row. And no way is he gonna fence it through some thick-headed dope from down on the Set. This one had a specific purpose. ...A client."

Cyborg's eye narrowed, scrutinizing the Titan leader openly. "And you're going to find out who."

Robin nodded sharply and turned away once more, milling about the room for his civilian wear, and studiously ignoring the reproachful set to Cyborg's expression. The older Titan did not comment, knowing anything he might have said would fall on deaf ears, but that didn't stop the irritated sigh from pushing through his lips.

"Just..." he began finally when Robin had finished pulling all he needed from his closet and started for the bathroom. "Just be careful, man."

Robin paused in his step, turning from the shadow of his profile just slightly. "Take care of them, Cy."

"You know it."

His gaze grew heavy and settled on the amulet in the glass casing, torn between the wish to stay and the need to go. "...If anything..._changes_..."

Cyborg understood. Too well. "You'll be the first to know," he promised.

He nodded resolutely, exiting the room swiftly before he could change his mind. Raven was counting on him.

He would not fail her again.

* * *

X felt his bones slip and hitch, pulling back into solid form as they emerged on the other side, and the thief hit the ground with a pronounced 'thud' and groaned. 

"Fuck," he rasped, choking down the overwhelming urge to vomit. It hadn't been as bad this time around, thankfully, but X suspected it was only because his nervous system was still jelly inside. His suspicions were only confirmed when an attempt to pull himself to his knees sent him into a full body spasm that drove him straight back to the ground in an undignified heap.

He rolled, doing his best to clamp down on the pain-filled cry that bubbled up from his throat as every injury he'd sustained from the moment he'd grabbed hold of that medallion until now, jolted into sudden, fiery awareness. The whimper escaped, regardless, much to his annoyance.

"Hey," came the throaty call from somewhere beside him. She coughed, and it was wet and grotesque and somehow unsuited for her frame in his mind. "You alive?"

Of course. He'd have to feel much better than this to die.

Red-X opened his eyes, finally—slowly—and felt the dread pool in his belly for what he might find once his vision focused.

It was not at all what he'd anticipated.

It was dark, and even through the enhanced spectral illumination of his night vision he could just barely make out the definition of a rather small, enclosed space. A cavern of some sort, it seemed, with what appeared to be another gateway some thirty feet away (which he was decidedly _not_ looking forward to passing through), though the details remained unclear in the haze.

He had no trouble finding Raven, however. In fact, she was the only thing he could see, and not for reasons of limited visibility. His gaze swept along the soft line of her silhouette against the shadows and stopped stone cold, his breathing caught at the deep, violet glimmer of her eyes as they cut through the aphotic depths of night and into his skin like razorblades, glassy and unfocused as they were. He had yet to understand why they always seemed to affect him so, and for the time X had no interest in dwelling on it _or_ the fact that if he took a deep breath, they'd be touching. Again. Rather intimately. After all, they had more important things to worry about.

Now, if he could just remember what those things were...

"X?"

Her voice was all it took to break the spell that had settled in the air between them, and the thief shook it off with a half-irritated snort.

"You can't get rid of me that easily, Princess."

Raven's eyes narrowed dangerously in the dark, and X could practically hear the way her teeth clenched as she sat up in the dirt. He grinned beneath the mask. There was just something oh-so satisfying about getting under her skin.

"Raven," she said curtly.

"Sure thing, Doll."

Raven hadn't thought it possible for anyone to annoy her as much as Beast Boy, but apparently, she'd been mistaken. The sorceress turned away with a scowl as he rose slowly to his feet, refusing to give in to the childish urge to kick him in the shin. Yeah, so he'd saved her back there. Again. That didn't mean he wouldn't totally deserve it.

A sharp hiss drew her attention, and she swiveled just in time to catch the thief falter in his step and clutch at his side. Her gaze sharpened. "You're hurt," she observed flatly.

"It's nothing," he groused.

Raven arched a delicate brow though her expression remained fairly impassive. "Right."

X sighed dismissively, letting his gaze drift along the cavern walls absently, trying to take his mind off the sharp sting in his side. It'd be fine. It _would._ "Where are we?"

Raven stood, dusting herself off and doing her best to focus her own vision. It was so dark, though; the only illumination afforded them came in mere slips and tangles along the ground, and it was scarce and dim, at best. Even for she who thrived in the dark, it was beginning to take it's toll on her, and Raven couldn't help but wonder if (should they survive the ordeal) she'd ever be able to see normally, again.

"Given the sudden lack of otherworldly monsters hell-bent on our destruction, I'd say we're at a sanctuary point of sorts."

"Sanctuary point?" he parroted.

"Yes," Raven drew out, sounding only slightly exasperated. "When a soul is released from it's mortal coil it doesn't just magically appear at it's intended destination. It is a _journey_—one that may very well take eons to complete, depending on the condition and merit of the soul itself. These places of tranquility are as much a part of the migration as the realms they separate."

"It's the breath before the plunge," X observed.

She watched him carefully as he leaned against the quarry wall with a noticeable slump. "Yes, I suppose one could put it that way."

X let out a short bark of laughter, though there was no humor in it. "Wonderful," he grumbled. "You said 'eons'...how long do you think we'll be down here?"

Raven shrugged. "I do not know. Could be days, could be years. Right now, we exist outside of time. Moments to us, may be decades to the world we know; it's impossible to say." If she was upset at all by this revelation, X thought she was doing a rather good job of hiding it.

"Even better," he remarked sarcastically. He breathed deeply and pushed away from the wall, clenching his teeth at the acute pain that followed.

She was standing in front of him then, closer than he'd remembered, and looking at him pointedly. "Let me see it."

"I told you, it's nothing," the thief dismissed.

"Well, aren't you just the Jack of all trades?" Raven intoned, "Not _just_ a thief, but a liar, too."

She felt him bristle at the comment, though to his credit, he never missed a beat. "What can I say, I'm a man of many talents." He took a step closer, and Raven sensed the smirk lying just under the mask. "Looking to sample the wares, Sunshine?"

"Keep dreaming," she deadpanned.

Red-X shrugged casually. "Hey, I'm just saying. You seem awfully eager to get under my suit." Another step, and she had to crane her neck upward to meet the place where she knew his eyes were locked on hers. A gentle flush painted her cheeks, much to her chagrin, though she didn't back down. "What's the matter, Pretty Bird, Wonder Blunder just not doing it for you anymore?"

_That _was too far. Raven moved to strike so swiftly that she didn't realize she _had_ until he caught her wrist firmly in his grasp. The moment froze around them as he pulled her closer, leaning down until they were mere inches apart. He chuckled, and it dripped like sweet, slow molasses from his lips, seductive to her ears despite the distorter.

"See, you just can't seem to keep your hands off me."

The look in her eyes was pure evil as the slow smirk crept its way to her lips. "Maybe you're right, X," she purred, bringing her free hand up to lay on his chest lightly...right before she took a quick jab to his side with it, causing the thief to double over with a sharp gasp. "Apparently, I can't."

The dark Titan took his position to her advantage, guiding him down by his unharmed shoulder until X had no choice but to sit or be pushed (not so gently) to the ground. He, wisely, sat—though not without a fair amount of bitching once he found his voice again.

"Damn it," he hissed painfully, fixing Raven with a particularly dark glare as she knelt beside him. "That was just below the belt, Sunshine."

"You only wish it was," she responded coolly. "The next time you want to direct my attention elsewhere, you might choose a more realistic approach."

"Who says—OW! Goddamn it! Watch what you're doing," he snapped.

"Well, stop squirming," she said, using what little of her cloak remained to stem the bleeding in his side. "Big baby," she muttered in afterthought.

The thief was strangely quiet, but Raven welcomed the change and continued to work with the gaping hole in his flesh. It wasn't terribly deep, thankfully, but it was rather nasty looking, and she knew it would need medical attention soon, or it would get infected. For now, she'd do what she could. She tore a few more strips from her tattered garment—thinking momentarily to just toss it away but then decided against it. They could always use a few bandages. Carefully, she reached around his torso, winding them about his waist before securing them in a knot at his back.

Raven sat back on her heels to assess her work and nodded curtly in approval. It was crude, but it would just have to work.

"There, that wasn't so bad, now, was it?" His gaze seemed to follow her as she stood, and though the thief remained silent, Raven could already tell what was on his mind. She wasn't going to consider how easy that was getting. "...We're even now."

X let out a heavy breath as he stood, slowly, and nodded. "Right."

They turned simultaneously to face the archway at the far end of the cavern and sighed collectively. Something about being liquified and regurgitated into a scene right out of _The Inferno_ meets _The Mummy_ wasn't appealing.

X sighed dramatically. "Well, look at it this way. At least you'll get to touch me, again," he teased.

Raven eyed him pointedly. "Don't make me kick you."

* * *

(1) This is, in fact, not even remotely close to Egyptian. It's Turkish. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a good English to Egyptian translator, and the closest I could get was Arabic or Hebrew. However, I wanted something that utilized something closer to Western characters, and neither of these fit the bill. Hence, the Turkish. The phrase itself roughly translates to "Mortal, you tread on sacred ground" though I'm not entirely sure, as it's been so long since I wrote that part. :) 

**Well, there it is. I hope you all enjoyed! Again, thank you all so much for taking the time to read, and especially to those of you who leave feedback. Hopefully, it was worth the wait. Peace, all, and please feed the author:)**


	5. Specter

**A/N: I know, it's been too long kids. A whole lot has happened since I last updated this story, and while I'm not about to get into all of it, know that it won't ever be that long before I update again.**

**That said, I hope you all enjoy. This chapter was significantly longer, but Starfire was being a pain in the ass, and rather than making you all wait even longer than you already have, I decided to cut and rework sections of this chapter. The next chapter is already complete, but for those of you who haven't been following my other stuff, I'll tell you that I have no internet, and my computer sucks, so I'm having to print pages and typeset them at my mother's house before I can update. A lengthy process to be certain, and one I don't have much time for, unfortunately, but I will try.**

**Read, enjoy and please don't hate me. Lots of love to all who have been sticking with this one. I swear to you, I'll finish it. Peace, all.**

_**Chapter Five: Specter**_

"_It's a long road to Canaan."_ --Simon and Garfunkel, _Bleeker Street_

Red-X was an observant man.

Really, he was. Had to be in his line of work.

So, it was only natural that he wonder what had taken him so long to notice what had been staring him in the face for ages—and not just in the way her cloak now hiked up to her lower back, giving him an unfettered view of the smooth, shapely legs and nicely rounded, yet toned, backside she usually kept beneath the shadows of her protective veil, though it was definitely what had captured his attention.

It was in the way she _moved_; every step she took was an exercise in measured grace. And yet, there was more to it than that—the sway and gentle slope of her body, the way she carried herself...

_Damn_. She was down right seductive. He'd bet she didn't even know it.

He tilted his head to the left for a more complete assessment as she continued to walk in front of him obliviously and sighed a little. Such was irony. Seemed like the best looking ones always wanted to take him to jail.

"What?"

X jumped a little, though to his credit it wasn't obvious, and looked up to find that the sorceress had stopped and was turned slightly to peer at him over her shoulder. "Huh?"

Her gaze sharpened minutely. "You were sighing," she intoned. "Why?"

It was interesting, he thought; she shouldn't have been able to hear him over the sound of that droning wail off in the distance. His vision flickered above them momentarily, to the vapor trail of lingering apparitions making their way across the endless white desert toward a point in nowhere, though he paid them no real mind. X was never one to spook easily, and though he knew they'd be trouble later, he saw no point in getting worked up about them now.

Besides, he had better things to get worked up about and for entirely different reasons.

"Just checking out your ass," he shrugged, answering bluntly.

To his ultimate chagrin, the Titan made no sudden gesture of surprise or outrage, though he was satisfied to note the very brief stain of her cheeks as she turned to face him fully, one brow arched sharply in a show of marked disbelief.

"Honestly, X," she remarked, somewhat exasperated, "you could at least come up with something believable."

She didn't believe him. She honest to God thought he was just trying to get under her skin, which, granted, was usually his motive but this time was just an added bonus. The notion left him dumbfounded, really, and opened his mind to a possibility he'd not previously considered. Had she been fishing for compliments as many women might have and he knew she absolutely wasn't, he would have been annoyed and thus lost interest, but this...

Raven honestly had no concept of how attractive she actually was. Un-be-freaking-lievable.

If he were to be entirely honest, it was a notion he, himself, had been avoiding since they'd gotten into this mess. Hell, since the time he'd saved her ass some months ago. Granted, he found nothing more satisfying than irritating her, and doting on her feminine attributes was the quickest way to do it, he'd noticed. However, play aside, legitimate attraction—not physical admiration, but pure _attraction_...it was a medicine for disaster.

And yet, he did so love playing with fire.

"Believe it, sweetheart," he said, sidling up next to her with a leer he was certain she could feel through the mask. He made a show of examining the length of her body, an appreciative noise bubbling up from deep in his throat. "You should consider losing the cloak altogether. With a body like that, you don't even need powers."

The look she gave him was priceless, and X felt the laughter slip from his lips before he could think better of it.

She scowled further, if it was possible. "You would do well to put your eyeballs back in your head," she snapped, stepping up her pace to put the distance between them. "I'd hate for you to lose them in an unfortunate accident," she grumbled, though he heard it anyway.

It was fuel to the fire, and X didn't even try to stop the amusement from coloring his tone as he jogged to catch up with her, taking her by surprise as he grabbed her by the wrist and spun the dark witch to face him.

"What's the matter, pretty bird," he purred, seductive and smooth even through the distorter. "I'm beginning to think Wonder Blunder doesn't..._appreciate_ you like he should." He brought her closer, and Raven went stock-still as his head dipped to the smooth slope of her shoulder, the electric sensation of his breath tickling the shell of her ear through the mask as he deliberately made his way along her neckline. "You know, I'd be glad to _appreciate_ you as often as you like."

Raven refused to dwell on the way her pulse began to race or the way he made her cheeks flush. She wouldn't even consider the trill of excitement running across her skin as it prickled or how the heat unfurled in her chest and low in her belly, making it difficult to breathe. She was too damned angry for that. The arrogant bastard, how dare he!

She shoved him hard enough to take them both back, rocking on their heels. "Hands to yourself, thief!" she hissed, eyes glowing dangerously. God, what she wouldn't give for her powers right about now!

X chuckled, and it was like sweet, slow molasses from his mouth. "Honestly," he said with no small amount of amusement. "You're no fun, sunshine. You gotta lighten up if you're gonna tag along with me."

"Tag along with you?" she parroted, ready to lose control of her already frazzled emotions. The cocky son-of-a-bitch was seriously asking for it. "Let's get one thing straight, X. I'm not here to--"

Raven gasped, eyes searching wildly as the earth opened up and sucked him down into depths of that snow white oblivion so quickly no sound had escaped his lips. "X!" she cried, dropping to her knees in the sand and digging across the surface frantically, heedless of the dangers that had taken him. "X! Can you hear me?"

Nothing. Raven began to tremble as she felt the ground shift below her; the sorceress scrambled to her feet and looked around, helpless against what might befall her, though she would try anyway. She assumed her best defensive stance, wishing like hell she had a blade of some kind as she heard a high-pitched whine, steadily growing in the sand below her feet.

She jumped as the earth screamed, spewing forth scalding air and one surprised looking thief. He shot up into the roiling black sky and then cried out as he dropped like a stone, colliding with the ground some twenty feet away in a sickening thud that made Raven's skin crawl.

The thief groaned, and the dark Titan called out to him, assessing her best point of contact. The sand was shifting all around them now, the space between them taking on two distinct and curious patterns of clockwise and counterclockwise movement.

If Raven was smart, which she was, she wouldn't move a muscle, and she knew it.

The titan broke into a dead run.

Later on, she'd blame the disorientation she'd yet to recover from upon entering the realm. For now, she had only one thought in mind: reaching Red-X.

Raven skidded on her knees, sending sand about them in a spray as she came to a halt at his side. "X," she breathed, gripping his forearms to shake them lightly. "Jesus, X, are you okay?"

The blade in his palm dropped to the ground, and X wheezed, having had the breath thoroughly knocked from his body upon impact. His head lolled about in apparent confusion. "Wha?" he groaned.

"Hey," she said softly, taking him by the chin to bring his gaze in her general direction. He was rather disgusting, really; the thief was covered in some sort of…slime, and the grit of wet sand clung to his suit like a second skin. Oh well, she'd worry about washing her hands later. "Look at—

Raven's eyes widened as the ground exploded, bringing a hailstorm of grit down upon them when the creature surfaced, screaming.

"Fuck." Well, that certainly got his attention, Raven thought as she took in the gargantuan beast before them. In all her travels, she'd never seen anything quite like it; a mammoth albino, a thousand snake like tentacles writhing as tongues in the gaping chasm of its mouth. Its wormlike body heaved, discharging a green haze of noxious fume from the rows of razor-like talons along its back, and the blood red pupil of its one great, bulbous eye narrowed menacingly.

Raven scuttled backward in a crab-walk, stopping only when she made contact with X, already standing. Reaching down, he grabbed her by the top of the arm and pulled her bodily up to meet him.

"Time to go," he told her, only to be knocked from his feet by the force of another creature, just as nasty as the first in X's opinion, surging up from the depths. The beast let out a heinous shriek that chilled both thief and titan down to the core, and the hapless mortals struggled to gain footing in the sand with the ricochet of sound driving the ground to liquid below them.

"We've got to do something," Raven called over the noise. "Do you have enough power left in the suit to teleport?"

"To where?" X replied, hoping she could hear him over that god-awful screaming. "I guarantee those aren't the only two big nasties out here!"

"Well how should I know?" she retorted, hands moving to her hips irritably as she squatted on her knees in the dirt. "I don't suppose you have a better—"

She squeaked as he grabbed her by the waist and jerked her forward; the sandworm struck out with a mass of tentacled tongues, just missing the sorceress as she tumbled into Red-X's chest and sent them both rolling over in the sand.

She sputtered the grit from her mouth as he pulled her closer, wrapping his legs around her own. Had circumstances not been what they were, she would have been sorely tempted to cut them off and feed them to him.

"Don't move," he whispered, hoarsely, slipping his hand between them. He pushed the button and prayed.

* * *

Pinky was beginning to regret his decision.

He squirmed. He, six-feet three-inches of solid muscle, was writhing and whimpering like a little girl as he dangled helplessly from the end of what looked like reinforced cable, though Pinky couldn't help but have his doubts. Upside-down at 15-stories high had that effect on a person.

"You don't really expect me to believe that, do you?"

Pinky tensed at the soft click from above him, craning his neck around to see the stranger sweep the razor-sharp titanium blade down the length of the cable.

"Did you think I just picked you at random?" His voice was a harsh whisper, and Pinky could feel the eyes burning holes through his head from behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. He wasn't certain just who the mysterious figure was, though he couldn't help but find something familiar about the muss of his dark hair and the grim line set on his lips.

"Look man, I done told ya," he said, voice strained and head aching as the blood began to settle in his skull. "I don't fuckin' know nuttin'!"

The line jerked and Pinky screamed, heart coming up in his throat as he came to an abrupt halt, albeit with one-third of the cord holding his life frayed at the edges. The dark one held the blade menacingly at the edge of the next, straining flex.

He grinned morbidly, and Pinky knew, knew right down to his bones that this man would have no qualms with letting him split like a watermelon on the pavement below.

"Okay, okay, okay," he jabbered in rapid-fire succession. "I'll talk! I'll talk! Some punk came lookin' for me down at the docks a few months ago. S-s-said he knew someone lookin' for a professional to rip some junk from the museum. I p-p-passed him off ta Spud Masterson. I swear that's all I know!"

"Who came to the docks?" the stranger asked.

"I dunno," he replied, breathing heavily. "I ain't never seen 'im before."

Pinky shrieked as the line jerked and pulled taut once more, tears welling in the dirty yellow tinge of his eyes.

"You're a terrible liar, Pinky," he taunted.

"Martinez!" Pinky wailed, helplessly. "His name's Martinez! Hangs out down at that bodega on Fulks Avenue—I swear that's all I got, man!

"Please, God," he snuffled hysterically, "please don't kill me!"

The stranger set his boot upon the ledge, leaning over his bent knee to meet the dangling man at a point closer to eye-level. The pale glow of night caught the glint of his perfect, white teeth as the deliberate grin set into place on the hard edge of his features, and Pinky felt his heart shudder to a stop.

He swallowed the prayer on his tongue and snapped his wild eyes shut as the line wrenched violently.

* * *

Raven was, quite frankly, damned tired of falling.

She'd thought they were going to make it this time. Really, she did. Had felt the powerful exhale of relief deflate his chest as they rematerialized, solid feet to the earth, and she unclenched her jaw and let her eyelids flutter open as the warmth of her breath rolled along her cheeks, buried within his chest.

Disoriented, she stumbled back slightly, flushing visibly, whether out of embarrassment or frustration she really couldn't say, as he reached out quickly and steadied her, cupping her shoulders in his injured palms.

"Whoa, there," he spoke, winded himself. "You alright there, Sunshine?"

"Don't touch me," she fussed, shrugging his hands away, though her standard vehemence was sorely lacking. "I'm just not used to traveling that way." She rubbed her temple and stubbornly refused to acknowledge the sing-song voice of Rebellion. What did she know, anyway?

"Yeah, well, you're welcome," the thief grumbled, turning away to assess their surroundings, though he wasn't having much luck. Even with the infrared vision and sensory perception enhancers Robin had loaded the suit with, the visibility in this place just plain sucked.

The thief sighed, running a hand over the armored scalp of the suit to the base of his neck and massaged the muscles, despite the soreness of his palms and the swelling in his shoulder. "Well—"

Her eyes widened the fraction of a second too late, and X lurched forward when the thing lodged itself into the back of his head, sifting through the contents and probing the innermost toils of his mind in one aggressive, intrusive fog of hate.

Red-X screamed.

For the first time, in a very long time, Raven simply didn't know what to do. She reached out to the thief and jerked, hoping to dislodge the ghoul, though it seemed to do little more than incite the foul parasite.

"X!" she cried, gripping him by the shoulders to shake him violently. "Come on, X, focus on me!"

He just kept screaming, that god-awful, heinous wail set her teeth on edge, and Raven felt the pressure build in her throat. She'd never seen someone mind-raped before, and the sorceress decided right then that it was the most horrific and terrifying thing she'd ever witnessed.

Guilt settled into the pit of her stomach. It wasn't the same she knew, but at least a part of her wondered if Robin had felt very much the same on the night of their bond.

She swallowed past the shame, refusing to let the past cloud her judgment of the present. Raven had no intention of letting anyone suffer that kind of torment be it within her power or not, ever again. Not even Red-X.

The Titan grabbed him by the belt, digging through the pouches and pockets to find something—anything that might get the beast to let go. Just as she thought she might have something to go on, the thief grunted and slumped forward, like a marionette with its strings suddenly cut.

"X?" she whispered, tilting his face to make eye contact through the mask.

He wasn't looking at her. In fact, he was staring straight past her, and Raven felt cold dread settle in the base of her spine as slowly, she turned to face his attacker.

It was a girl. A young girl, though the lines of her face might have said differently. She smiled, and the thief whimpered in the back of his throat, apparently mesmerized by the ghostly fog of her transparent body.

"Jack…" it breathed, voice a soft, sweet litany. "Jackie…"

Raven drew her brow in confusion at the sudden hissing intake of breath, and her eyes drifted back to the boy leaning heavily into her side, his fingers beginning to tremble as he reached out tentatively.

She took his wrist suddenly, startling him into inaction. "Don't touch it," Raven warned. "It's not what you think."

"I…" X shook his head violently, pulling back from the apparition, though reluctantly. "You're not real," he whispered, one foot slowly behind the other.

The ghoul distorted, revealing the malicious white heat below the child's skin, a malevolent phantom, snarling with rage as it lunged for them without preamble.

Raven started, scuttling backward just a step too far as she met the edge of the earth, and the sorceress cried out as her balance tipped. Swinging her arms in wide circles, she struck out, catching Red-X by the armored fabric of his collar as she fell, effectively bringing them both tumbling down the rough stone incline.

And they were falling. Again. Damn it.

She grunted and cursed as her already battered body made contact with every razor-edged rock and limb in her path, and by the time they slowed in their descent, Raven would have bet at least one of them had suffered some broken bones.

Fortunately, her final resting point had been a soft enough landing. Perhaps less fortunate was the stunning lack of ground afforded her there. The water washed over her head and down the Titan's back in a frigid gale, and Raven had to force down the natural urge to gasp for fear of choking.

Still, it was the least of her worries and she knew it. While Raven could swim, she wasn't the strongest, and the steady ache of her muscles made it difficult to fight the rushing current. She kicked for the surface, struggling to free herself from the river's command despite the weight of fatigue settling in on her. God, but she was tired.

The dark witch pushed further, wishing like hell for the thousandth time for her powers as she kicked and pulled for the surface, trying to quell the rising panic when the air began to grow stale in her lungs. God, just a few more feet, she knew she had to be getting close.

Raven wanted to laugh out loud when she felt her hand break through the surface and latch on to the warm, soft palm of another. She was coughing and sputtering, lungs screaming for air as she surged forth from the depths to meet him, knowing they were each the other's only chance of breaking the shore.

X was there, clinging bodily to the one limb that branched out midstream with one hand and clutching her hand like a lifeline with the other. "Well, it's about damned time," he panted, fighting to draw her closer though the current was working against them.

"What can I say?" she deadpanned, tossing her head to sling the soppy mess of hair from her eyes. "Traffic was absolute hell."

He grinned beneath the mask, pulling her forward as she worked her feet to bring herself in his general direction. It worked, with no small amount of effort on either part, and within moments, the sorceress found herself pressed into his chest. She refused to dwell on that or the feel of him through the slickness of her wet leotard.

He held fast, working to keep her in place as he steadied himself on the limb, and Raven felt her breath hitch as he drew her closer, brushing her ear lobe with the slope of his jaw. Honestly, why did he have to go and touch her like that anyway? Her emotional barriers were raw and battered, and the tiniest little thing, just the slightest, made her…well, she couldn't say just what it made her. Whatever it was, it wasn't Raven.

Damn him, anyway. Arrogant jackass was probably doing it on purpose.

"You're going to have to climb over me and up the limb," he breathed through the distorter and eliciting a surprised squeak from the girl in his arms as he reached down and grabbed her belt, tugging forward.

Raven flushed hard. "Just what the hell—"

He snapped the lifeline into place, and the titan fell silent, comprehension dawning behind the muted crystalline of her eyes.

"When you reach the shore, you can pull me in," he continued as though she'd never spoken. "Kind of like fishing. Got it?"

Raven nodded once in acknowledgment, and the thief took her by the waist firmly with his one free arm, a move she got the distinct impression he was thoroughly enjoying by the slight squeeze he gave her as he lifted her upward. She'd have to remember to kick him in the teeth later.

The climb was agonizingly slow in Raven's opinion. Perhaps, if she hadn't been so tangled bodily about him, she could have tuned out everything but the task at hand. Perhaps, if she hadn't been fairly certain he was staring at her ass, bent so conveniently before him, she could have kept the presence of mind to finish quickly.

But Raven was awkward; she was clumsy and strange and altogether devoid of her typical ease and grace. And the titan felt her cheeks stain red once more when she realized they both had noticed and knew the other noticed. If that made any sense. God help her, nothing else seemed to.

She made it finally, after several long minutes and many near falls, and the sorceress rooted herself to the ground in dogged preparation, pulling the line taut along the crux of the tree that housed the branch that saved them.

"Okay, X," she called over the rush of water and distant howling. "Let go of the limb!"

He did, and Raven cursed as she jerked forward, toes brushing the ground as the distribution of weight tipped and leveled. Damn, but he was heavy with all that gear and water.

She bounced, touching ground and reaching up for a higher length of rope and, wrapping it around her palm below the base of her fingers, Raven pulled with all the strength left in her tiny body.

* * *

He collapsed as his flesh wound itself back together, the slips of low light in the sanctuary a blessed quietude among the chaos surrounding them. Red-X exhaled heavily, the breath from his abused body echoing in a strangled whimper from his throat.

For the first time since he'd entered this realm, X was tired—physically and mentally tired.

"Let me see your shoulder," she spoke quietly, decidedly more collected than the thief at this point, though haggard just the same as she sat down in the dirt at his side. "I want to check the swelling."

He shrugged, not really caring to fight her at this point, though her attentions were sorely misplaced as far as he was concerned. A few more bumps and scrapes to be certain, but he'd had no new major injuries. Nothing physical, anyway.

"I'm fine," he grumbled, turning over on his back. "The suit protected me from the fall."

"And before that?" she wondered aloud, pretending not to notice as the thief stiffened right down to his toes. "That ghost—"

"I'm fine," he snapped. "End of story."

"Is it?" Raven intoned, too perceptive for her own good. "You knew her," she observed, looking out into the darkness. She'd no need to see his face. She felt more in his aura than mere sight could ever grant her. "I saw you up there, you know. I _saw_ you. Maybe for the first time."

"You don't know a damn thing," X growled, rounding on her in sudden fury, burning her with the heat of the fire within his chest. It was the first time she'd seen him as anything other than cool nonchalance.

And there was just something about playing with fire…

"Who was she?"

He was on his feet in the space of a heartbeat, yanking the titan up by her forearms. One violent shake brought the girl's probing to an abrupt end, and Raven stood in blatant, wide-eyed shock as he met her nose to nose.

"I _said_ you don't know a damn thing," he hissed, voice a malicious storm beneath the mask. "Drop it, Princess. It's none of your fucking business."

He dropped her like a stone, and Raven hit the earth hard. The glint hardened in her eyes as he stalked to the far corner of the room, sliding down the rough, granite wall, head in his hands as he met the ground.

* * *

**Hope it was worth waiting for. Please feed the author, if you are so inclined.**


	6. A Doubting Thomas

**A/N: Been awhile, I know, but fortunately no where near as long as the last time. Thank you all so very much for sticking with this one. It's a much shorter chapter than what I'd planned, but the content is imperative to the development of character relations and everything that happens from this point on. So...yeah. Hope you guys enjoy! Peace.**

**Chapter Six: A Doubting Thomas**

_"Can I be used to help others find truth, when I'm scared I'll find proof that it's a lie? Can I be lead down a trail dropping bread crumbs that prove I'm not ready to die?"_—Nickel Creek, _Doubting Thomas_

Raven was a creature that appreciated the value of silence. It was an uncommon truth found in the space between heartbeats—the gift of complete clarity. She felt it once in a great while at the tower when the sun broke upon the horizon and the stretch of its golden fingers caressed her face in the gentle breeze of dawn. She could think there in that utter quiet, letting her breath drag on into the pulse of the world around her, and her senses would sharpen into sudden, stark awareness.

And she could _feel_ it—that worldly synchronous thrum of life. It was the only time she was ever truly and wholly a part of anything.

She exhaled softly, the sound of it breaking the oppressive stillness within the dark. So different from the hush she longed for at home; his was the quiet of the tomb.

He'd not spoken or moved since their brief altercation upon entering the sanctuary some hours before. If not for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, she'd have been concerned considering the number of injuries the thief had sustained. It was a strange thing when she really stopped to think on it. For all they'd been through, aside from the painful symbols burned deep into the cusp of her palms, Raven had only minor scrapes and bruises. Red-X had, thus far, taken the brunt of everything.

She buried the part of her psyche that wondered how much of it had been in her stead.

Raven scowled, suddenly irritated though she couldn't exactly say why or why she should be. She must be going stir crazy—it seemed as though they'd been there forever.

Heaving a sigh, the sorceress got to her feet, brushing the dirt from her leotard as she stood. She'd forgone what was left of her cloak; not much point in it, now.

He was angry with her, Raven could tell. It was misdirected anger, of course, but it was there nonetheless.

Not that she cared, because she shouldn't and she didn't. But still, they needed to move. Raven was uncertain just how much time had passed on the plane of reality they knew, and while she had done well to remain calm on the matter, she couldn't stop the anxiousness from creeping in on her.

What would they find when they returned?

Perhaps everything. Perhaps nothing, which would redefine everything.

"Look, I know you're tired," she spoke, the lonely echo bouncing back upon her as though he did not exist there beside her. "I am too. But we're going to have to move soon."

He said nothing. Red-X was as still and cold as the grave.

Raven shuffled uncomfortably, wanting to approach and surprised at herself for it. This place was doing something to her; the Titan was certain of it. For once, she wasn't going to over-think it.

The dark sorceress willed her feet to bring her forward, stepping softly in the dirt until she came within but a few feet of him. He sat, precisely as he had, with his back to the wall and his knees drawn so that his forearms rested casually atop. His head relaxed against the granite wall behind him, tilted up toward the unending black. She knew he saw her, though he made no physical indication or recognition. Cautiously, she knelt before him, as though reaching out to a wild dog, though she made no move to touch.

She wouldn't consider the part of her that said she wanted to.

"X?" she inquired, somewhat more hopefully than her standard monotone might allow. "Let's go."

"No one's stopping you," he whispered finally, voice drained and empty even through the distorter. "Go."

Raven pursued her lips and narrowed her eyes to scrutinize him fully. While she couldn't claim to know him well, she knew enough that it wasn't like Red-X to give in so easily. Something in his overall demeanor was off, and Raven couldn't quite pin it down. Intuition told her it had something to do with the apparition they'd encountered before, and she supposed she could understand.

She recalled the soul-chilling scream that erupted from his mouth in the midst of his invasion and shuddered. The invasion of his mind had been brutal; she'd felt it within him. Raven was decidedly smart enough to realize that even with her empathic ability, she'd never fully know how vicious the attack had been.

Still, she couldn't help but feel there was more to it than the rape of his mind and a haunting memory. He was surprisingly good at keeping the majority of his emotions cloaked from her senses. Only in moments of dire vulnerability had she detected what truly went on below the surface of his skin. Perhaps she was reading too much into it, but looking at him now, she knew there was something else that stayed his movement.

However, they couldn't just stay here forever, and she had no intention of doing so.

"I'm not kidding," she said quietly.

"Neither am I," came his droll reply.

She sighed, trying not to let her frayed nerves frustrate her unnecessarily. "I can't do this without you," she admitted more freely than she might have normally done. "I can't activate the gate without the other half of the key," she said, lifting her palms to illustrate her point more clearly.

"Then stay," he said. "It makes no difference to me."

"Don't give me that crap, X!" she snapped, irritated. "We can't just stay here forever."

He remained impassive; the soulless black sockets of his eyes betrayed nothing of his expression behind the mask. "_We_ may choose not to stay here forever, but _I_ can do as I please," he responded dryly. "For the moment, I elect remain precisely as I am. _You _may do as you wish."

"Listen here," Raven ground out harshly, "you might not give a damn about getting home but I do. While you may not have anything more waiting than your next five-finger discount, I have people counting on me. _I_ have a job to do!"

He snatched her wrist so quickly she couldn't stop the startled gasp from escaping her lips. "A _job_?" he hissed angrily, jerking her forward to meet him. "Your _job _is nothing but a joke."

The comment stung more than it should have, and Raven snatched her hand back with a decided scowl etched into her delicate features. "That's precisely the sort of thing I'd expect someone like you to say," came her terse reply.

The thief exhaled sharply in a breathy almost-laugh that left her somewhat perplexed. "Someone like me," he repeated slowly, letting the words roll through the metallic ring of the distorter in morbid amusement. "Wow," Red-X said, disbelieving. "And here I thought you were the smart one."

"Excuse me?" she snipped, irritated and confused.

X leaned in closely, and Raven bit down on the urge to flinch as he gripped her chin firmly. He whispered: "The only reason I'm a 'someone like me' is because of someones like you."

She could feel him smirking through the mask, and Raven choked back the ball of anger swelling like a cherry bomb in her chest. He was treading on dangerous ground with an outlandish remark like that one. It was unfathomable—ridiculous even—if he was honestly implying what she thought he might be. _'Breathe in, breathe out…don't let him get to you Raven.'_

"Tell me, Pretty Bird: When was the last time you fought anyone that wasn't dressed up for Halloween?"

Raven's breath hitched inadvertently, and she could no longer tolerate the feel of his eyes, boring into her own through the deep black veil of soulless sockets in the skull-face, so she snapped them shut. She'd wanted to command him, to stand before him assertively and deny that he'd tapped into the crypt of her heart and unearthed the tiny pocket of guilt and uncertainty she kept there, and say it, though it came out as little more than a whispered plea. "Stop it, X."

He would not. "What was that, Princess?" he mocked condescendingly. "Were you just about to tell me who the last rapist you collared was? The last murderer? The last fucking pedophile?"

It was as though he'd knocked the wind straight from her body. "We," she tried, "we fight—"

"You fight the very creatures you create," he said coolly, though she'd rather have him screaming than the quiet judgment he passed on her now. For the first time, Raven was able to pinpoint just what it was that had crept under her skin from the moment he set her under the weight of his scrutiny. Perhaps from the moment she'd met him. It radiated from him in palpable waves now, and her skin prickled as her mind reeled in the knowledge of it. Why hadn't she ever seen it before?

He was…angry. But it was more than a misdirected emotion, she knew. It was rage, old and festering beneath the surface of his heart like a malevolent thundercloud of devastation. She felt it as sharp as a razor blade across her smooth, pale skin, felt it and knew somehow, that he'd harbored this dark agony for longer than she could ever fathom, nestled within the core of his soul and buried below the blankets of falsity and dead emotion.

He was angry with her simply for being what she was. Somehow, she couldn't help but feel like she deserved it.

"There is no dark without light," he continued, voice a strained whisper that told Raven he was exercising the limits of his control, "and the common criminal has only the common man to contend with."

She could feel the eyes upon her face as he ran the silk of her hair through his gloved fingertips. "And then there's you," he spoke, voice growing even quieter—colder, if it was possible, "and your friends and all the other freaks with an abnormality pretending to have the good of the human race at heart when they crawl out of the woodwork. And what do you think is going to happen then, Pretty Bird?"

"That's not true," she denied, knocking his hand away as she shook her head

"Isn't it?" His voice was becoming a sinister whisper, worming its way through the fabric of her thoughts like some sort of parasite that threatened to consume her soul from the inside out. "Am I not the perfect example? Your criminals grow; they evolve to meet the challenge set before them. Like flies to shit. It's natural selection at its finest, really."

"You know nothing," she hissed, at the end of her ability to handle the situation at more than face value. "We _fight_ for the good of the innocent, for the good of their cities and homes and children." Her throat was suddenly tight, and the air in her chest grew stale and oppressive. "We _fight_ so that all which is good and precious and right in the world will keep its place in it. We fight because _somebody_ has to."

"And while you're off fighting the good fight of things that are larger than life—the life you want so badly to improve that you lose sight of it—the real monsters creep in like a plague," X countered, undeterred, though the rage that had colored his tone before had been replaced with something far worse in Raven's mind.

Pity.

He sighed heavily and took a step back. "So, forgive me if I'm not so eager to step back into the mess you've made, Sunshine," he breathed, sliding back down against the wall, weary and hollow from his conquest—an empty victory, though he'd expected nothing more. "This time is mine. I'll leave when I'm damn good and ready."

She staggered back as though physically struck and said nothing. Red-X wondered if she yet realized she was crying.

Something told him he'd never forget it.

* * *

He flinched at the scrape of her boots on the rooftop, and Starfire couldn't help the overwhelming surge of sympathy in her veins at the sight of him. Half nude, snot-nosed and trembling, Pinky Dickerson looked more like a terrified child than the ruthless thug he was known to be as he scuttled back further into the corner of the ledge at her approach.

Poor bastard. Someone had worked him over good.

The alien princess shifted uncomfortably at the uneasy twist of her stomachs. She had a fairly good idea who.

Sighing, the pretty red-head knelt, choking down the ball of ice in her throat when he cried out at the movement. "Please," she ventured, attempting to meet his yellow, tear-stained gaze. "Do not be frightened…"

He lashed out with a dirty fist, and Starfire jerked back just in time to miss the brunt of his assault, angry at the situation they had been placed in. It had been one glofnar, 14 wreknogs and 67 gleebnaks, more than a full week by Earth standards, since Raven had disappeared. And already Starfire knew, knew in the way she often knew without being able to explain or even acknowledge the perception, that there were things set into motion that would forever change them all, regardless of the outcome.

It was already starting. Pinky Dickerson, it seemed, was but one of the initial casualties. After all, no matter what Cyborg thought, she knew Robin's handiwork when she saw it. Starfire wasn't stupid, and she did not think her friends believed she was, but it frustrated her when they would try to coddle her out of some ridiculous sense of preservation. Just because she lacked their eloquence in communication did not make her any less mature or capable than they.

He meant well, she knew, but Cyborg was the worst. Robin had been gone for the last four days, and the older teen had yet to actually tell them. His absence hurt, for more reasons than the hollow it left behind. He was warmth and air and all that was good and righteous in the world, and Starfire knew no other absolute good that that which he was in the light of his heart.

She'd tried to tell him, so many times, what he meant to them, to _her_, but never quite managed to get her meaning across. Still, she had never worried, for she knew if she could just be there with him—show him each and every day with her unwavering loyalty and unquestioning trust, the interpretation would present itself. There would be no need for words or explanations or misunderstanding.

How very wrong she'd been. Perhaps, she had not shown him enough? Had she not been as good as she could have been? Didn't he know they—_she_—needed him?

And now, when the circumstances were most dire and they needed him most…

…He left them behind.

The notion ached in Starfire's chest as no other had before or since. Rejection, betrayal…jealousy; unworthy as they were, the fog of mistrust was worming its way into her heart like a disease, and the little alien girl so very far from home felt as that which she was for the first time. She missed her home, and she missed her friends.

She missed her heart.

Looking at Pinky Dickerson, she couldn't help but wonder if he felt much the same way. She sighed, bringing a quick hand to the back of his neck and watching the scruffy head flop forward into unconsciousness.

She swallowed past the ash in her mouth and flipped her communicator open with trembling hands. "Friend, Cyborg," she said with more buoyancy than she actually felt. "The anonymous caller has spoken true. The Pinky is here, awaiting apprehension."

"Good work, Star." She couldn't help but notice the grim undertone of his voice that suggested no cause for celebration in an arrest this time. "Take him down to Central Booking."

She paused, uncertainty roiling up like tar, hot and sticky in her throat. She couldn't bring herself to say it, but Starfire couldn't help but wonder if he was the criminal she should be seeking this time. "On…on what charges?"

He appeared to be mulling it over when the thought crossed her mind that perhaps the hospital would have been a better place for Dickerson this time. She opened her mouth to say so, when he broke in with something more pressing.

"Conspiracy to commit fraud …and murder."

Her abdomen locked up like Fort Knox, and Starfire felt the urge to be sick on the ground at the implication. "That is not true," she whispered, tears pooling in the sparkling green sea of her eyes. "Raven has merely lost her way, she is not—"

"We don't know what she is, Star," he spoke, subdued though rational. "It's—"

"Do not tell me it is 'complicated' again," she interrupted, speaking through the painful vice in her throat. "You protect no one by omitting the truth. Perhaps, friend, you will pass the message on to Robin, when you see him."

He sighed, looking guilty and far too old for his years as he ran the large cup of his palm across his head and down the length of his face and jaw line, a gesture he often made when nervous or under stress. "Look, we need to talk," he conceded. "Stop by the north post and grab B.B. when you finish up. We'll go over everything we've got when you guys get back to the tower."

* * *

**A/N: I know, woefully short. But better than nothing, right? In truth, this chapter was about twice this long, but I wasn't terribly happy with my transition, and I know it's going to be at least a couple of weeks until I can work on it (I've just started graduate school, and I have finals and papers that take precedence), and I thought you guys deserved something out of me. That, and the conversation between X and Raven is a pivotal moment in their relationship, so I can get by with having it as sort of a stand-alone. Things are going to change from this point on to more than just fun sexual tension.**

**At any rate, thank you all so much for sticking with this fic after my painfully long absence between chapters four and five. I never dreamed so many of you would be so receptive to this little project of mine. Thank you all so much! You are sincerely appreciated.**

**Hope everyone enjoyed. Please feed the author, if you are so inclined.**


	7. Carousel

**A/N: See, I'm getting better at this whole updating business. Thanks so very much to all of you who have taken time to read and review. I never dreamed this little project of mine would be so popular. Hope you guys enjoy. Peace, all, and please feed the author_._**

_**Chapter Seven: Carousel**_

"_In a house where regret is a carousel ride, we are spinning and spinning and spinning." –_Counting Crows_, St. Robinson and his Cadillac Dream_

She wasn't speaking to him, and X found that after spending time on both sides of the fence, he preferred it that way. She could keep her nose in her own business, and when this whole mess was over he could finally sever all ties and be done with the lot of them.

It was for the best this way, and he did not feel guilty.

Really, he didn't.

After all, why should he? He'd spoken the truth and nothing more, and the truth was seldom kind. It was the most painful lesson he'd learned and one Red-X had carried most of his natural life.

It was time the dark sorceress learned it, too. If she couldn't handle it, that wasn't his problem. It shouldn't matter to him one way or another.

But he knew better than that, didn't he? He exhaled heavily, eyeing the back of her head and the stiff draw of the muscles in her neck and shoulders through the dim as they made their way down yet another in a series of rough stone stairwells, each looking slightly more ominous that the last. This one was so narrow, so steep it was virtually a straight drop into the nothing below. The thought made his stomach squirm.

And there was nowhere to go, which was decidedly worse than before. X had barely enough room to stand up straight, feeling claustrophobic as he extended his arms to either side and brushed ancient stone walls. His chest felt tight, squeezing and twisting his heart through a toothpaste tube, spilling the life of him in sticky globs onto the floor. The thief shuddered and glanced around into the darkness, studying their surroundings warily. Watching, waiting for the next ghoul to come…

God, he hated this fucking place.

"How far do you think it goes?" he sighed absently, unaware of how she tensed at the sound of his voice, though he nearly tripped when she stopped abruptly before him.

"How should I know?" she said in her customary monotone; he could feel the unvoiced sneer. It shouldn't bother him, that dry, empty space in her voice. It was all he'd ever known of her before. And yet…it had been so subtle, the minute familiarity in her tone, the way she'd seemed to ease around him. Funny how he hadn't noticed her barriers slipping until they were slammed so violently back into place. "You're so damned smart, you tell me."

Red-X swallowed past the knot of annoyance as she stepped forward once more, moving as a sheet of glass, the aloof precision with which she carried herself fluid and measured in decided condescension as she left him standing there. He blinked, taking in the oddness of her demeanor for a moment before falling into step.

Not that it was really all that odd, and not that he gave a damn, because he didn't. Really. Let her be snippy. X had more important things on his mind.

He shuddered, choking back the bile threatening to rise in his throat at the thought of it. Some things, he decided, no living creature should ever have to endure, and the thief shivered, chilled right down to the core. The ghoul had slipped into him so easily, snaked its way in through the windows of his mind, rummaging through the darkness of his most guarded moments, his fears—stealing away things most precious and leaving him naked and weak and screaming as a newborn child inside.

His heart twisted painfully, knowing that hadn't been the worst of it.

The whisper of a vision drifted into his mind's eye, that glimmering vapor of a little girl…

Raven cursed, and Red-X jerked back to the present just in time to snatch the Titan's wrist when she lurched forward, having apparently gotten tangled up in her own feet. A pronounced scowl etched its way onto her face, and the dark witch yanked her arm back as though scalded.

"Don't touch me," she hissed, the deep amethyst of her eyes sparkling with anger like lightning struck brambles. X brought both hands up swiftly in surrender, and she turned away with an unladylike snort. "And watch where your putting those big, stupid feet next time."

"What?" he asked, suddenly confused.

"You heard me," she snapped, annoyed.

"I didn't trip you," X defended. "It's not my fault you're a klutz, Sunshine."

She rounded on him, hands firmly on her hips and lips pressed in a thin line. Raven fairly radiated irritation, and X grimaced beneath the mask. Damn, but she was pissed.

"I think I can feel it when you—"

The sorceress drew a sharp breath as her feet were taken out from under her once more, and X made a grab for her waist, finding he was just a hair too late. He snagged the link of her golden belt with his fingertips, but the displacement of her weight took them both by surprise and both thief and titan went tumbling painfully into the dark.

X drew into himself, absorbing the blows into every other deep purple agony of his body as he plummeted down the ancient stone stairwell. He could hear swearing, and the thief couldn't decide at this point which one of them it was actually coming from.

They spilled out into the open like a pair of dice from a plastic cup, tumbling over and again until Raven hit the surface of what she could not see with a resounding crack and a whimper. She cried out as Red-X barreled into her a heartbeat later, wrapping around the Titan gracelessly in a clumsy heap as they stilled, groaning on the cavern floor.

He coughed, lungs seizing as the impact drove the breath from his body, and X winced at the movement. Fuck. Bound to be a couple of broken ribs in there.

"Get…off," Raven husked, anger lacing through the fabric of her voice like a spider's web.

"Chill out, sister," he grumbled, untangling his legs and arms from her prone form to push back and sit upright on his knees. He resisted the urge to let his hands linger at her waist, though he might have liked to play with her a little, he thought, scanning the smooth slope of her legs in the darkness; they were in the perfect position, after all. Had circumstances been a little more ideal and she not so inclined to gouge his eyes out, he would have.

Well, he would have tried, at any rate.

He cocked his head to the side as she eased up from the ground slowly, resting her weight on one elbow and cradling her head with the other hand. X could see the ugly bruise flowering beneath the spread of her fingers on her forehead, a steady stream of blood pooling at the base of her knuckles and slipping through the cracks of her perfect mask.

The thief hissed in sympathy, reaching out to take her hand and guide it away for a better look.

The look in her eyes was pure malice as Raven jerked her entire body back, and his fingers met the empty air to fall away, defeated. "I _said_, don't touch me."

Red-X gave an irritated snort. "Don't be an idiot," he stated, matter-of-factly. "A head injury could be serious. Let me see it."

She punched him. Straight up hauled back and delivered a solid right hook that could be described as nothing less than vicious. The blow caught him across the jaw and sent him sprawling back in utter shock.

"You think you know so Goddamned much, don't you?" she snarled, voice breaking around the ball of glass in her throat. Something had slipped loose inside her, and X knew that suddenly, this had nothing to do with potential head injuries. He'd pushed her just one centimeter too far.

Raven sat up fully, heedless of the blood streaming grotesquely down the length of her face as she hovered above the thief like a storm cloud, heavy with the rain and lightning. "Do you honestly think you've told me anything I haven't considered a million and one times over? Do you really _believe_ I don't know where the gray begins? That I don't know the nature of our game? …You think you're the only one capable of seeing both sides of the mirror?"

X swallowed. Well…yes, if he was truthful with himself about it. That's exactly what he thought.

"You think because you've come to terms with the world around you—as you understand it—you're somehow superior to the rest of us," she said, anger slowly ebbing from her voice the longer she spoke. It had been replaced with something else; something X recognized all too well and suddenly hated himself for feeling. "And worse, you feel like life owes you something for it. Because you got a raw deal, you're entitled to pass judgment."

He clamped down on the denial that threatened to leap from his tongue. He would have just been lying, anyway. X could defend all he wanted to, but she was right.

She gave a short, whisper of laughter, and X winced inside at the slight ghost of a smile on her lips. "So, what…you thought you'd enlighten me? Knock me down to your level, and maybe we'd be equals, then?" She'd said it, though it wasn't really a question. "You pompous, self-righteous bastard."

And there it was, his assumption dropped into his lap like an atom bomb. It had never occurred to him that she was aware of the unique role she played—the protector, protecting the world from herself as much as anything else. It hadn't once crossed his mind that guilty though she felt about it, she was resigned to it anyway.

Her voice grew so quiet, then, he struggled to hear, the anger and mocking resentment bleeding over into the deadly calm of the justified.

"We might be of the same animal," she intoned, pinning him with a decidedly critical stare and exposing the thief beneath the surface of the skull face, "but we will never be equals."

His silence was his confession, his shame in knowing. Righteous and vindicated as X felt he was, Raven would always remain the better of them, because she knew she was not.

"You don't know anything about my friends.

"And you damn sure don't know anything about me."

The only sound left between them was the harshness of her breath as it whistled through her teeth, and her eyes searched him out in the dim, waiting for a response. He did not disappoint.

"Feel better?" Red-X asked quietly.

The Titan cleared her throat and sat a little straighter, taking a deep breath as she did. "Yes," she replied, surprised in the truth of her response. "Yes, actually, I do."

"Good," he nodded in acknowledgment, letting the tension between them dissipate like smoke. He stood, brushing the dirt from his cape as she, too, rose from the ground. X stopped short when she hissed in pain, peering at her bloodied face through the darkness. "How bad is it?"

She screwed one eye closed in disgust as she did her best to stem the flow of blood with her injured palm. "Aside from just being gross in general, I think I'll live."

"Here," he said, coming close enough to make Raven take a step back into the rough stone wall on reflex. Her eyes deliberately scanned the inky black, trying to assess their surroundings to little avail. The stairwell had opened into some sort of tunnel that reminded her distinctly walking into the catacombs of the old library in which Slade had been resurrected to find her once upon a time. She suppressed a shudder, feeling decidedly claustrophobic.

Or that might have been him; it was hard to decide. Raven swallowed hard, fighting down a blush when he moved closer still and cradled her face in his palm, tipping her chin up lightly as he brought the fabric of his cape up to press it firmly over the wound on her forehead. She struggled to maintain even breaths, hating herself for the turmoil brewing inside her chest.

The thief blew gently across her flesh, and Raven stiffened right down to her toes. "W…what are you doing?"

She could almost feel him smirking beneath the mask, though his voice gave no indication. "Just trying to stop the bleeding," he said absently. "That's a pretty nasty gash you've got there."

The wound. Right. Raven blinked, trying to keep focus. She sighed heavily, moving her gaze toward the stair in open speculation. "It almost felt like something reached out and grabbed my ankle."

He craned his neck to the side, his own suspicious stare following the path of hers. "That's not entirely out of the realm of possibility," X said thoughtfully, growing uneasy with their prolonged immobility. He turned, peeling back the titanium reinforced material of his cape to examine his handiwork; seemingly satisfied, the thief stepped back, giving Raven much welcomed space to breathe and turned his attention to their surroundings once more. "We should go. We've been here too long."

It was almost as though the shadow had been waiting for him to say it. He ducked, dropping to his knees to roll away on the ground as the darkness pulled together around him, the creature—a serpent, giant and vengeful—building itself from the gloom. Red-X could feel the weight of evil threatening to crush the air from his lungs as the great snake solidified, a hateful hiss springing from its bottomless black maw.

"Jesus," X whispered.

"X!" Raven cried, picking herself up from the cavern floor, the creature situated carefully between them. "Behind you!"

He jumped, sheltering his eyes from the shower of rock as the second creature struck the ground where he'd been standing. It shrieked, anger and despair calling forth a legion of asps from the shadows, and Red-X felt the blood run cold in his veins with every writhing, malevolent fury given birth in the night.

"X!" she called once more, eyes seeking him across the chasm.

"I'm fine," he yelled, meeting her gaze to nod affirmatively. "Just…" his head swiveled around, and the thief barely had time to miss another strike. He danced nimbly around the beast, looking up to find Raven fighting in much the same way. "Time to go, Sunshine!"

Instinctively, she knew what he meant, and she bolted, coming at him at a flat run as he did the same, a serpent on each trail. They passed one another without looking back, driving the two beasts into one another hard, the collision eliciting a painful squeal and hiss.

They had no time to celebrate, both moving at a breakneck pace, bobbing and weaving through one another as they pushed their way through the tunnel. It was a dance of beauty, really; fluid and measured, precise in the way that only a true fighter could appreciate. If one hadn't known better, it would have appeared as though they had fought and trained together for years as they dipped and dodged, playing off the motion of one another to reach the zenith of their journey.

They had only just breached the chamber at the end of the passage when X cried out as he twisted away from a well-timed assault, feeling the pull against the splintered ribs beneath his skin. A painful spasm rocked through his body, and the thief doubled over, hitting the ground hard.

Raven was there before he could meet the full impact, throwing his arm around her shoulder to haul him up from the earth.

"Come on, X," she urged, fear etching its way into her voice as she braced him against her body. "Keep moving; you've got to keep moving!"

Red-X wheezed but somehow willed his feet forward, gaining momentum in step with the Titan at his side. The serpents were swarming, coming in droves now, it seemed, and sucking the air void. The ground was shaking itself apart beneath them, and he could feel the deep vibration beneath the soles of his boots when the chamber shut itself off from each side. They kept running anyway, aimless and trapped though they were.

"Fuck," he snarled as they met another dead end, the circular paths they ran coming up short in the limited space of the pyramid tomb they found themselves in. "Where's the damned gate?"

"Just keep looking," Raven answered breathlessly, legs aching but too afraid to stop. "It's got to be here."

It was then she saw it, that ominous glow breaking the surface of the rock some 50 feet away. "There," she said excitedly, tugging at his sleeve to direct his attention. "It's—"

The force of the blow ripped them apart and sent both thief and Titan violently in different directions. Raven groaned from the impact, heart clenching in her chest when she heard X cry out in pain as he struck the ground. She spent no time dwelling, however, and the dark witch rolled into a ball to come to her feet as she skidded across the dirt, knees bloodied and bruised.

She couldn't stop, and she knew it. If she did, they would both die, and Raven simply wasn't prepared to meet her end in this place. She refused.

Unfortunately, it seemed she had little choice in the matter. Raven dug in her heels once more, making to run toward Red-X when she was forced to stop short at the creature in her path. She drew back instinctively, hoping to loop back around, but the malevolent hiss rolling across the back of her neck like a desert wind told her she wouldn't be going that way, either.

The Titan turned slightly, stomach rolling over at the sight of it; the massive serpent was nothing like the others. This one was more than a black fog, more than a mindless hate. This one was intelligent. She could see it in the penetrating red gaze, written in the shine of its terrifying white stretch of teeth. This one, she thought with no small amount of certainty, might just be a spiteful god.

It mattered not when the great albino asp set her under sharp scrutiny, venom slinking down from its open jaws like tar, hot and thick upon the earth. She backed away, feeling her knees go weak when her back met the rough scratch of granite.

Raven was cornered.

Time slowed for her, then. The sorceress swallowed past the heavy ball of lead in her throat, closed her eyes, and thought of her friends. They would bring her comfort now; she only hoped they would find their own.

A shrill whistle sang in her ears, and Raven opened her gaze just in time to see bright metallic streak pierce the night, sailing past the end of her nose, wind brushing her face gently as it went. The serpent wailed as its stomach split open, flesh tearing apart like paper under the sharp edge of the red shuriken.

"Weren't you the one that said we had to keep moving?" he called, jumping straight into the air when one of the snakes lashed out to take his feet out from under him with its powerful tail. He landed with a grunt but still on his feet. "And here you are sitting down on the job!"

She grinned, launching into a dead run at the distraction. "I prefer to think of it as supervising."

He gave a short bark of laughter as she met him and they fell into step with one another once more. "Is that what you call it? I thought you were just letting me do all the work."

"Well," she breathed. "There is that."

Whatever comment he might have made was cut off by the heinous shriek from behind them; the albino was in hot pursuit, muscle and meat oozing grotesquely from a wound it barely seemed to notice through the madness of rage. They pushed for the gate, but X knew the creature was faster and powerful. He gaped as he looked back to find it coiling directly behind them, preparing to strike.

What happened next came in disjointed fragments. They were there; they were almost there, standing before the gate when she felt his hands on her back, shoving her roughly to the side. The Titan cried out as she crashed down, into the dirt…

…Out of the way.

And Raven felt the blood drain from her face.

Red-X was screaming.


	8. Wide Open

**A/N: So, this chapter is woefully brief for a reason. It was actually the lead in to a much, much larger and far more important chapter in this piece. Actually, it was the single most important chapter in the whole story-the namesake, even. BUT it would have been so very long (ridiculously so) and I'm having difficulty getting into the meat of the chapter without making this section a transitional point. So, here it is. I will say, however, that something of serious significance does happen in this post, but the bulk of the good stuff will be in the next update.**

**This one has not seen a beta, as per usual, so if you see anything in dire need of help, do let me know. We're wrapping this one up soon too, kids. Three chapters left (would have been two with the possibility of an epilogue), and that's pretty much all she wrote. At least for this story.  
**

**That said, I hope you all read and enjoy. You have no idea how much I appreciate all of the feedback and support I've gotten on this one. I am truly grateful! Thanks so much!  
**

_**Chapter Eight: Wide Open  
**_

_"A man's face is his autobiography." - Oscar Wilde_

Raven hit the ground with a broken, shuddering cry, face down and bloody in the dust as her body wound itself to flesh and bone, and she gasped, desperate and fumbling for precious air as she clutched his solidified form to her breast like a lifeline. And she swallowed past the desert in her throat, shivering with the knowledge that rattled around inside her head. She could hear it, the terrifying cacophony of his screams ricocheted in her mind like a stray bullet, and for a moment the Titan could only clench her eyes tightly and will the nightmare away.

But willing and wishing wasn't going to help either of them right now, and Raven knew it.

Dipping into a well of strength she knew to be running dry, the dark witch shifted and brought the circle of her arms to wrap around his torso a little tighter as she sat up. Raven pretended not to hear the sickening gurgle from somewhere deep in his throat as she did. There would be time to think on it later, in the still and quietude; now, she had to get him some place with at least a little more light.

Easing to her knees slowly, Raven lifted his body upward, grunting with exertion when she tried to stand, struggling under his greater bulk. The thief hung as dead weight, head lolling to the side like a rag doll as she drew him tight against her and pulled him along, feet dragging across the sand.

A strangled whimper echoed in the empty air, and Raven felt tears welling up in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered, voice cracking. "We're almost there." She just needed to get where she could actually see something. Maybe then, she could do something. Maybe then, she could help.

Her back met the wall where the hazy blue glow danced in slips and tangles along the stone, and the ground was just a little brighter, and the Titan slumped, wiping her brow free of sweat and dirt as she laid him to the earth as one would a glass figurine and heaved an exhausted sigh.

She'd known what they were up against from the beginning—understood in a way that no other could. But for the first time Raven wondered, really and truly wondered, if they could take anymore—if they would survive this world.

Looking at him now, as he was, she didn't think so.

Raven drew a trembling breath, sliding down the rough stone to collapse upon her knees at his side. He shivered through what was left of his uniform, muscles locking in a tight spasm that drew forth an agonizing whine from deep in his gullet.

The dark witch tripped on a sob as she allowed herself to take in the sight of him for the first time, the knot swelling in her throat to the point she thought she'd not be able to breathe. "Oh God," she breathed, choking on the air in her lungs like a poison. "X…"

Red-X looked like absolute death. The ragged remains of the titanium-thread uniform hung in strips and tattered cords from his legs and torso like a burial shroud; his abdomen was a bleeding mess, oozing streams of his life as oil, thick and dark.

She reached forward with unsteady fingers, plucking back a hanging flap of his shredded gear to reveal the deep, angry grooves in his skin, the permanent mar of the serpent's fangs. The sorceress let loose the breath she did not know she held in an exaggerated sigh. Raven knew enough of wounds to know that, thankfully, the beast hadn't hit anything vital. Still, something was amiss…

The Titan traced lightly along the swelling dark of his injuries, stretching her fingers to settle her palm in the tangible air above the ravaged flesh and feeling the heat radiate from his skin like sunlight through a magnifying glass. Her stomach twisted; while his vital organs had been spared, Raven knew something far worse was spreading within, threading the fibers of a sinister web in his veins.

She felt the chill settle into her spine at the thought of it; the awful shriek that echoed in his chest as the snake coiled back to strike him like a thunder—

Raven abruptly shook the memory from her mind. The Titan didn't think she could bear it, the vision of him crumbling before her from her place in the sand, knowing he had taken the blow in her stead. Again.

"Why did you do that?" she asked, the ache breaking behind her voice in a sob. "Idiot," she hiccupped, wiping the heat from her eyes furiously. "You're so stupid, X…you're so damned stupid…"

It was too much. It was all just too damned much for her bruised psyche to handle, and for once, Raven made no attempt to resurrect the dam that had burst in her heart. She cried, and she cried hard, lacing her fingers through the matted muss of her hair and hanging her head as she wept openly.

Her emotional barriers had been so very raw. The stress of their situation had only been compounded by the fact that she'd not been able to meditate. It was no wonder the Titan had felt like she was going to lose it. She was certain the only thing keeping the screaming pulse of her unstable power from slipping through the cracks had been the previous years of discipline and the innate knowledge that any slip could mean the utter destruction of all she knew.

She sniffed, peering out from the glassy sheen of her lashes, heavy and wet with tears, to look at him once more. Her relationship with Red-X was fraught with tension at the best of times, and while she knew their tentative truce was built on mutual need, Raven had begun to question whether or not that was the truth.

He was supposed to be her enemy. He wasn't supposed to carry her when she'd fallen. He wasn't supposed to pull her from the raging river of the dead. He wasn't supposed to push her from harm's way.

But he had, and it was more than forced camaraderie. Even without the ability to use her powers, Raven could not shut off the nature of empathy. The thief was rather adept at keeping most of his feelings in check around her—better than most, really. But she'd felt this, and she'd felt it as strongly as though the emotion had been her own. Red-X had helped her because he wanted to.

Perhaps it was what had angered her so when he'd snapped at her in the sanctuary. The thief had twisted her head around in so many ways, had left her confused and tender as he worked to shift the role he'd previously filled in her mind. And then, he'd turned on her, which should not have surprised her and didn't really.

Except that it did. And what's more … it hurt. Unthinkable. Ridiculous, even. But apparently not impossible because it hurt, nonetheless. Raven felt his fury, his pure hatred for what she was as keenly as she'd ever known anything before. The thief had lashed out, not with the intention of showing her the shadowland in which they dwelled, though that was certainly the pretense, but for no other reason than to inflict pain, though she doubted that even he realized it.

And she had let him, which had only fueled the fire of her anger and self-loathing. The childish ass had her so knotted up inside she could hardly think.

But just when Raven thought she had figured him out, he'd go and do something to make her question everything all over again. Like saving her life—like giving himself for her.

She sniffled, her gasping sobs easing to a quiet slip and hitch of breath. The Titan had to get it together and she knew it; she could blow apart inside when they made it home.

Raven yelped out loud when she felt the trembling grip around her wrist, nerves seizing so hard when she jumped that she thought her heart would stop. The thief drew a sharp whistling breath at the movement, an inadvertent moan creeping up from his throat at once.

"Shh," she soothed, wiping her eyes quickly as she leaned down to hover above him. "Don't move, X. Just rest. You just need to rest."

He squeezed her wrist slightly, and Raven felt her chest swell and burn when Red-X tugged weakly, pulling her fingers up from the ground to lace with his own, guiding her slowly to the latch that held the cracked plate of the skull mask in place.

Her fingertips dangled, frozen in the empty air, and the dark one swallowed hard. "X," she breathed, hesitant. She knew what he was thinking, and Raven supposed she could understand. No one wanted to die without a face. "You're not going to die," she assured him. "I won't let you, do you hear me?"

He pressed her palm closer in response, guiding her grip to curl around the edges before letting his hand fall away, a silent gesture to proceed.

Raven steeled herself, fighting past the knowledge that she was about to break the sacred, unwritten code between them. Still, she closed her eyes as she popped the latch and pulled the last of their physical barriers away, his rapid, shallow breathing bouncing around in her ears as sound hits the walls of a cavern.

She did not open them again until his fingers found hers once more, tangling together to give the comfort that neither of them had. She sighed with an unsteady breath, focusing her gaze through the dark to settle upon his features in open curiosity.

She suddenly understood why he had taken the suit. Now that she'd seen his face, Raven knew she would never be able to erase the image from her mind.

Red-X was unlike any other creature she'd ever seen. He was handsome, but not remarkably so, though his features were striking and distinct in a way she couldn't fully explain. His skin was a smooth, soft olive – nearly Mediterranean in appearance, though the thin planes of his nose and the set of his jaw spoke of a more French descent than Greek. The platinum shine of his hair glowed in stark definition within the gloom, so pale it appeared as snow in the subtle luminescence of the cavern.

But his eyes…so very unusual, like two pits of burning coal, dark and terrible, beautiful and deep, like sparkling cut onyx set into the frame of his face in deliberate mayhem. Abruptly she turned away, unable to look into that black prism.

"S'okay," he wheezed, speech made awkward by the swelling of his bottom lip. "I wouldn't want to look, either."

Raven made no reply, exhaling through her nose as she set to work, a determined line to her jaw. She took the tatters of his cape made more pliable by abuse and began to fashion something akin to bandages, deliberately avoiding his gaze.

If he noticed, he didn't say.

* * *

Sometimes, things just happen.

Of all the lessons Robin had endured in the shadow of the bat, this was the one on which he'd never managed to get a solid grip. Most of the time, things happened because someone or something willed it to be so. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, after all, and Robin found that Newton's law applied virtually everywhere.

Except for those things—awful things—that sometimes happened for no reason at all; which they did and with far greater frequency than he would have preferred if given a choice in the matter. It was both unfair and cruel, and while he'd seen it happen to the undeserving time and again throughout much of his young life, Robin had yet to understand or, more importantly, accept the fact.

It was, perhaps, for this reason Raphael Martinez was being loaded into the back of a Jump City EMS transport, blood oozing from his ears like deep, red tar and crying like a little girl.

He shifted on his feet from his place in the shadows and watched, jaw set like stone and fists clenched in barely contained fury. Nothing. Martinez had given him absolutely nothing but 'sometimes, things just happen.' Robin snorted, spitting the irony like a poison as EMTs folded the gurney into itself and guided gurgling thief through the open doors. Funny how just a couple of weeks ago, he might have felt sorry for the son of a bitch.

"Did you get anything?"

He did not turn to meet the disappointed gaze behind him. Robin had enough of it festering inside all on his own.

"What are you doing here, Cy?" he asked, weary and aching to the core.

"JCPD called," he answered quietly, stepping up beside the smaller Titan though he kept his gaze firmly fixed to the scene before them. "Wanted us to keep an eye out for some loony stalking the slums. Apparently, he tortured Pinky Masterson straight into Arkham. You wouldn't know anything about that now, would ya?"

Robin grunted incoherently and turned away, retreating further into the alley.

"Look man," Cyborg called after him, though Robin did not stop. The cybernetic Titan turned to follow, quickening his pace to catch up. "That ain't what we do," he ground out harshly and grabbed a fistful of Robin's jacket at the shoulder and spinning him roughly. He jabbed one finger into the blue fabric of his shirt at the chest for emphasis. "_You_ taught me that! Don't you turn your back on it, now."

Robin's eyes narrowed into malicious slits beneath the protection of his sunglasses, and his tone dropped into a soft and deadly warning.

"Get your hands off me, Cyborg."

The older Titan exhaled sharply and untwisted his fist from Robin's shirt, pushing the titan leader back as he did. "Whatever, man," he said, disgusted. "That ain't the way she'd want it to go down, and you and I both know it. Bet she'd be real proud, Rob."

Robin went completely still at that and swallowed hard, the embarrassed flush creeping up his neck like a steamroller. "I…"

"Bash in all the heads you want, man," Cyborg threw over his shoulder as he stomped into the night, "but I won't cover for you again—to anybody."

* * *

She sat back with a long, gusty sigh, swiping her forearm across her heated brow as she took a moment to look at her handiwork. He still looked like absolute hell, of course, but the Titan had managed to stop the bleeding with some measure of success, cleaning the areas around his marred flesh and ridding his skin of the metallic stench and stick of blood. He lay bandaged with the ragged remains of their clothing – both his cape and hers – still and quiet as the emptiness creeping into her chest.

Raven felt a chill creep along her spine at the belabored gurgling sound in his breathing and turned her gaze away once more, wringing her hands absently in her lap. Not for the first time, she wondered just where they would go from here. The sorceress felt reasonably assured the thief wouldn't bleed to death at this point, and while his physical wounds were no doubt painful – excruciatingly so – they would likely heal given time.

It was time they did not have. Raven swallowed past the vise in her throat. She could feel the sickness seeping down into the darkness beneath his skin, into the hollow places he kept closed and quiet within. His aura was already shifting, dulled by the venom taking root inside, and she knew –Raven _knew_ – it was only a matter of time before it consumed him. She could heal him once they were in their home world; that was the easy part. But getting him there, as he was now…

"H-how?" he croaked and Raven jerked in surprise, flushing when she met his eyes, glassy though intent upon her. She hadn't realized he was awake.

"How what?" she whispered, confused.

His gaze traveled down the length of her arms to rest on hands that suddenly felt awkward, nudging her fingertips weakly with his pinky, and Raven colored slightly, knowing now to what he referred.

"I … I don't really know," she admitted quietly, looking away. "It just sort of … happened." Raven was fairly certain that sounded just as lame as it did in her head. Didn't make it any less true, though, she thought, recalling the way her hands had exploded with some sort of strange kinetic energy just before … just before …

"You s-saved me," he managed, picking up where she'd left off in her mind. Her recollection was dim at best, and Raven shuddered at the memory, the pulse and flare she'd felt thrumming through her chest, adrenaline roaring in her ears as the creature screamed…

"Magic?"

"No," she replied, brow furrowed in thought as she mulled it over. "At least, I don't think so. Not exactly." She met his gaze and shrugged helplessly, the current of unanswered questions sparking between them.

Silence began to thread its fingers through the air, and Raven sagged back against the stone wall, exhaustion settling into her bones like lead. What she wouldn't give for her own bed right now.

"Th-Thanks," he murmured, causing Raven to snap her attention to him once more. She studied him curiously for a moment, noting the way the smooth contours of his face had drawn up into a painful grimace as he fought against the dark haze edging into his vision to maintain consciousness. But he was drifting into fitful slumber before the words had fully left him, and Raven felt the tension in her shoulders ease just a little when the tight line of his body suddenly released.

The dark witch exhaled heavily as she watched him through the glimmering depths of her eyes, exhausted and feeling guilty and strangely inadequate. Raven swallowed hard, breath coiling up in her throat yet again, though she was far too tired to try and understand the reasons. She let her head fall back again, speaking so softly she herself could barely hear the words.

"I think, perhaps, I should be the one thanking you."


End file.
